Flowers of Kirkwall
by Philosophizes
Summary: Nathaniel finds out that he is not, in fact, the last living child of Rendon Howe, and everything spirals completely out of control from there. All Theron Mahariel wants is for his people to be safe and have good lives, but Kirkwall is apparently fundamentally opposed to things like simple happiness. Sequel to 'Ghosts of Amaranthine'.
1. Chapter 1

Vigil's Keep got mail even on All Soul's Day, because the Arl-Commander wasn't Andrastean, and neither were a number of Ferelden's other most important Grey Wardens. This particular All Soul's Day, the first day of August 9:35 and the official start of autumn, the mail contained a very special letter.

It wasn't seen for a couple of days. The Arl-Commander might not have been Andrastean, but the Constable of the Grey in Ferelden- whose position really entailed being the Seneschal of Vigil's Keep and Amarathine instead of the Warden duties the position carried all other places in Thedas- was, and he was at the rebuilt Our Lady Redeemer in Amaranthine for services on All Soul's. He wouldn't return until two days after the holiday.

The letter wasn't addressed to him, but it ended up in his office, awaiting his attention, because the person it was addressed to was a member of the Vigil's staff who'd died three years ago in the first darkspawn attack on the fortress. The old groundskeeper had no known living relatives, or friends who hadn't already been told he was dead, so it had passed on to the Constable.

Constable of the Grey Nathaniel Howe didn't get to the letter right away once he'd returned. He didn't see it at first, because he already had things he'd planned on attending to that morning. All Soul's Day marked the start of a new quarter, which meant that last quarter's reports had to be filed with him at the Vigil. That's what he spent his morning looking over.

First were the reports of the banns of Amaranthine- things were still improving since the post-Blight attacks, and there were only the expected troubles. He made a few notes about what places needed more soldiers to deter bandits and where the coast guard could stand to patrol more to catch raiders, then put them all aside for the reports that he privately felt were his _real_ duty.

Keeper-Captain Velanna didn't have much to say, as usual. The Wending Wood was still the safest place from bandits in the entire arling, and the granite and silverite mines were undisturbed. The Dalish hadn't seen any hint of darkspawn, but Velanna was considering moving the clan to the Blackmarsh in spring because of the activity from the mines. It would also give the forest a chance to rest and replenish its resources. She included some ideas about how to keep the Pilgrim's Path patrolled, including using it as practice for her younger, newer, or less-skilled hunters, or a joint training exercise between her people and Amaranthine's soldiers.

She also included a line at the end for the Arl-Commander, something about a meeting of clan Keeprs coming up in a couple of years that she'd have to attend, and the fact that she still hadn't obtained a First. Nathaniel copied it out under his notes about troop rearrangements, so he'd remember to tell Theron about it.

Ser Alec wasn't a Warden, but he was Captain of the Guard in the city of Amaranthine, which was a position important enough to file paperwork about. The reconstruction was still going, but most of the major things within the city were finished. Now it was just the expansion of the walls, which would take a while. The smugglers and other lowlifes were trying to regain their foothold, but the guards had kept them unsuccessful so far. Everything was in order.

Warden-Captain Oghren was the newest appointment, promoted once Houses Helmi and Dace had successfully cleared the Deep Roads to Kal'Hirol earlier in the year. Paragon-King Jerrik, formerly of House Dace, was still causing an uproar in Orzammar. He'd been named Paragon for being the leader of the Deep Roads cleaning, and for sharing the technique that had brought him safely home from Amgarrak with the Legion of the Dead, but King Harrowmont had been very displeased when the newest Paragon had appointed himself King of Kal'Hirol instead of handing the thaig over to Orzammar as a vassal state. Oghren had been sent to Kal'Hirol with Sigrun as his second to monitor the Deep Roads and to liaise with the Legion outposts now stationed along the path. The Roads were still quiet from the Deep Cleaning, as some dwarven wags were calling it, and looked likely to stay that way for at least a little while longer.

Up at Soldier's Peak, Warden-Captain Alistair was having the hardest time out of all his peers, as usual, and was complaining about it the most, also as usual. His first year back from hunting across Ferelden for the Warden-Commander had been spent cleaning up the Peak and doing what minor repairs could be accomplished before the snows got too bad, then handling the interior ones. Essentially, he'd spent a year camping on a mountain, and still wasn't happy about it.

This past year the project had been major structural repairs in the areas that had been declared unfit to live, and getting Wardens moved into the parts that were ready for habitation. The Voshai had all moved up there, and later on Theron had sent the Fereldan Wardens' mage corps- a grand total of three, one from the Jainen Circle, one from Kinloch Hold, and a free apostate who'd been on his way to join the Lyrists of Kal'Hirol to collaborate with the dwarven smiths when he'd gotten sidetracked- to base up there as well. Reading between Alistair's complaints, Nathaniel could tell that everything was on schedule and they hadn't gone too over-budget. The Drydens were still shipping things up to the Peak and making piles of money off being the Wardens' unofficial merchant family in Ferelden, and were doing their part for the relationship by finding the very best materials.

' _But who else is going to live here?'_ was Alistair's most familiar complaint. _'There's only fourteen of us, and that's including Shale. That's most of the Wardens we have right now, and even if the Orlesians were still around and could be convinced to live up here, it's more space than we can use.'_

The Arl-Command had _'generously'_ allowed the Orlesians to return home two years ago, since the Blight clean-up had been finished before they'd even shown up. In reality, it had been the only thing to do to keep the citizens of Amaranthine from ganging up on them, and to keep the peace in his own ranks. Happily, the Orlesians had wanted out of Ferelden as much as the Fereldans had wanted them gone. The only two who had stayed were Leonie Caron and Nelle Ehoux, but they'd already been accepted as honorary Fereldans, so it had worked out.

Nelle was Alistair's second up at the Peak, and Leonie was Nathaniel's here at the Vigil.

Sometimes that was very awkward, because she still had no idea that he'd killed her brother. And then lied to everyone about it.

Nathaniel wasn't sure that the Arl-Commander knew he'd killed Gerod Caron after finding Anders dead at his- admittedly botched- orders. Oghren knew, because he'd been there; and he was pretty sure that Sigrun and Velanna and the Voshai suspected that the official line was covering for something underhanded and just didn't care; but he was _certain_ that Zevran Arainai had seen right through his lie from the start. Maker only knew if he'd told his lover.

He might have: he'd appointed himself the Arl-Commander's bodyguard and spymaster, inasmuch as Theron Mahariel Sabrae, Hero of Ferelden and Slayer of the Archdemon Urthemiel _needed_ either of those things. Theron's immediate second-in-command assassinating a superior officer, even out of a sort of loyalty to the Arl-Commander himself, was exactly the kind of thing Zevran watched for.

He might not have: knowing that Nathaniel had killed Caron would make Theron sad and disappointed, and everyone who worked directly with him knew that the limits of what Zevran would do to keep him happy and content were quite possibly non-existent, in a scary way. The only comfort was knowing that the Arl-Commander was a good man, and didn't often get truly upset.

Nathaniel had finished the quarterly reports when the assassin in question walked into his office unannounced and unexpected, in regular field armor. It had silverite plates- just like Amaranthine's soldiers' and Ferelden's Wardens' armor did now, courtesy of Wade and the mine in the Woods- and the rest of it was warm Antivan leather, because Zevran was the most spoiled assassin in all of Thedas.

The sad part was that Nathaniel could even blame _him_ for it. Theron just liked giving him nice, extravagantly expensive presents unprompted. Sure; he could afford it; and sure, it was usually weapons or armor or some such useful thing; and sure, Zevran seemed to honestly enjoy being the Arl-Commanders extremely lethal and semi-conspicuous arm candy; and sure, Theron did the same sort of thing for all his friends. Nathaniel still felt like he was supposed to be disapproving for some reason.

"You look as pleased as Ser Pounce on a cellar day," he told Zevran. "Aren't you supposed to be in Portmarch, foiling pirates?"

"I was," Zevran agreed. "And I did. But then I heard a wonderfully intriguing piece of rumor about your mail, and had to return with all speed!"

"My mail?"

Why would people be gossiping about his mail? It was all reports and party invitations from the banns that Theron only sometimes went too. And every so often, something from the Queen asking him to come to court in Denerim, Zevran warmly invited as well, of course. Usually, she was trying to have Theron intimidate new diplomats by his mere presence, and letting Zevran get a good look at their spy networks while they were distracted. Nathaniel, Alistair, and Zevran were pretty sure Theron hadn't caught on yet, and they'd quietly agreed to let him find out on his own.

"Say, rather, mail that has defaulted to you," Zevran said, and extracted it from the old bottle crate Nathaniel kept things he needed _'to look at, but not right now'_ in.

There was a name he knew on it, written in hand that looked familiar, but couldn't place.

Zevran handed it over, and Nathaniel spent a moment to examine the outside of it- _'Samuel, Groundskeeper of Vigil's Keep, Arling of Amaranthine'_ written on the back, closed in the front by an unstamped blob of wax that looked like it had been dripped from a cheap candle- before opening it.

' _Dear Samuel,_

 _Albert and I made it to Kirkwall once Amaranthine began having all that trouble with the darkspawn, but there are so many other Fereldan refugees here that we have not prospered. Albert only just managed to obtain a stall space in the Lowtown Bazaar last month, and while I am grateful for it, it would have been helpful a year ago, or two, when our Thomas was born. He isn't a very lively child, but I don't know if it's just his nature or if I should be concerned. The healer who runs the free clinic for the refugees says it's likely just his character, but, well, I worry. He's still young enough to be very susceptible to diseases._

 _And now I have another thing to worry about. Our daughter Emily was born three days ago, and I am writing this to you from the birthing bed. I gave the healer and Albert quite a scare with all the blood I lost. We've been advised not to try for more children, and I'm confined to the bed until the end of the week. It's trying, with a toddler and a newborn and little money, but at least I can do embroidery jobs from home. I don't have to be at the stall for that. And in Kirkwall Fereldans help Fereldans, and Lirene, the woman who organizes these things, found someone who could come do things around the house this week and watch the children, for only the cost of food. She's been a true blessing._

 _But now that I have two children, Samuel, I will truly have no time of my own to continue the search. I must confide in you that for a bit there during the birthing, when I was losing all that blood and certain that I was going to die, I was almost relieved. Thomas was lost to the Blight, and Father was too in his own way, and even though I had expected to find Nate here in Kirkwall there has been absolutely no news of him- I fear he returned to Ferelden without informing anyone and fell to the darkspawn. In those moments, I was comforted by the thought that I might see him again._

 _Please, Samuel, has any word of him reached you in Amaranthine? My father may despoiled our name, but I would hope that Nate, if he still lives, has avoided it. He had nothing to do with any of it._

 _Yours,_

 _Delilah'_

Delilah. Delilah. _Delilah._

His _sister._

His sister was still alive, In Kirkwall. She'd left the country ahead of the Burning. She had children.

He was an _uncle._

He wasn't the last of the Howes.

"Nathaniel?" Zevran asked.

"I- I have to go talk to Theron. Right now."

* * *

The proper course of action here was very clear and very simple- they would go to Kirkwall and bring Nathaniel's family home.

So of course everyone else had to object to it, because he'd included himself in that _'they'_ \- and as he'd been very emphatically informed in the past, he, Theron Mahariel Sabrae, was no longer allowed to go on trips.

Which was completely unfair. He'd traveled his entire life, and it was only the two that had gotten completely out of hand and almost killed him.

But no one held becoming a Grey Warden on the eve of betrayal and then stopping the Fifth Blight as a misadventure. That was heroism, and applauded. It was just the second one that was a misadventure, by everyone else's reasoning, even though he'd been in much more danger during the Blight.

Which, most days, he thought was fair. He had still done good on his second journey, but he'd abandoned his people to do it.

His father had been Keeper of Clan Sabrae before Marethari, and it was only the instance of being born without magic that had kept him from following into his father's position. It had been expected, his lack of magic, but still a mild disappointment. Every time the magic of a Keeper didn't pass down to their children, it was another small loss for all the Dalish- both for the growing lack of magic in the clans and the fact that other Dalish children would have to be taken from the clans of their families to make up for it.

In a different world, Theron could have trained as his father's First, or as Marethari's. Instead, his father had been killed when he was too young to have clear memories of anything, and Marethari had been pulled from her position as First of Clan Vhadan'ena under Keeper Zathrian to become part of Sabrae, and Merrill had been taken from Clan Alerion as a young child to become her First.

In this world, he wasn't the Keeper of Clan Sabrae. He was Keeper of Ferelden's Grey Wardens.

Not that he would ever say that to most of his people- his first people, the Dalish, so many of whom would look at his second clan and sneer _'shem'len'_.

His Wardens were his second clan, in some ways more true than his first, because it was for the Wardens he would ultimately die, not Sabrae. He would not stand to see the Dalish deride them, or defame them, or insult them in his name.

Sometimes, when Theron was completely alone and there was no one who could possibly hear him, he whispered it to himself: _Dorf'amelanesan Amelan_.

Elvhen didn't have a proper word for Grey Wardens, at least that he'd ever heard. Maybe other clans knew it, but Sabrae hadn't, so he'd had to make one up. There was something poetic about it: _'Keeper of the Grey Keepers'_ , the closest he could get in Elvhen to the true meaning of _'Warden'_. In the same way, it pleased him to know that the true home of his new clan was Vigil's _Keep._

But he had been a bad Keeper, after Amaranthine. The Burning had been necessary, but leaving afterwards- Keepers didn't do that. If a Keeper had to leave, they told their First where they were going, and then still only left if the First was ready to leave, with the clan _Hahren_ for support and guidance.

Theron hadn't even _had_ a First when he'd left. His Wardens had had to sort it out themselves, and-

It had gotten some of his clan killed. Wardens- Anders, Justice- and the people of the arling who were still his responsibility, but didn't fit easily into Dalish comparisons.

He'd been being a good Keeper since returning to the Vigil, and so long as he properly provided for leadership while he was gone, Amaranthine and the Wardens wouldn't be left without protection again.

And he'd have to leave. It was his _duty_ to go to Kirkwall to retrieve Nathaniel's family.

"It _is_ a good political move," he counter-argued; because while he knew that his reasons were properly supported, the Wardens and others he had to convince weren't Dalish. "You do a very good job, Nathaniel, but what happens once you and I are gone? I know why the queen gave us this arling, and I thank her for it, but the First Warden's reasons for accept are not very good ones. If your sister was here, I could reinstate her to the nobility, and then she and her children and their children after them could be Seneschals of Amaranthine. Having an Arl-Commander is entanglement enough without having the second-in-command position similarly drawn to two duties."

"As it is," Zevran remarked casually, which menat that he'd been waiting for an opportunity to make this point. "Theron runs the Wardens more than the arling, and you organize the arling more than the Wardens."

Nathaniel sighed, but in frustration, not resignation.

"Whose side are you on?" he asked Zevran.

"Is it not obvious?"

"It's not like I'll be going alone," Theron told Nathaniel. "Zevran will be coming with me. And so will you, since Delilah is your sister."

"But then who's supposed to run- all this!"

"Captain Garavel can handle the army," Theron said. "Ser Alec and the city council have Amaranthine well in hand. Alistair, Velanna, and Nelle can lead the Wardens."

"Ah, my dear," Zevran said. "I would not assume that Alistair will consent to be left behind on Soldier's Peak while you go on an adventure."

"We won't be gone for that long. There are ships from Amaranthine to Kirkwall, and then it should only be a couple of days at the most to find Nathaniel's sister and arrange passage back, and then we're home. Only a week. Anyway, I thought Alistair hated Kirkwall."

"Trust me, _amora,_ he will hate the thought of you going somewhere without him much more."

* * *

When Alistair got wind of the news that Theron was going on an excursion to Kirkwall- courtesy of a junior Warden dispatched in secret by Zevran and Nathaniel- he got right on his horse and headed for the Vigil to give his friend and piece of his mind.

Namely, that he could agree with going to Kirkwall to get Delilah Howe, but that nothing short of the Sixth Blight could make him stay at the Peak while Theron went off to foreign parts unsupervised.

"No, Zevran doesn't count as supervision! And Nathaniel's going to be distracted by his sister!"

Theron couldn't get him to leave, and Alistair was added to the Kirkwall group because of sheer stubbornness.

Two Voshai mysteriously turned up from the Peak a few days later- Mhequi and the former Ander, Lockhard.

"Bad place for Captain," Mhequi insisted. "Bad lyrium."

"Why do they like you so much?" Nathaniel asked Alistair.

"I really don't know. Somehow they got the idea that I'm a delicate maiden in need of a cadre of loyal bodyguards."

"You're _our_ Captain," Lockhard said loyally. "We're not letting you go back there without support."

So then they had to account for the Voshai. While they were rethinking their travel arrangements, Captain Garavel and Ser Alec lodged a joint plea for the Arl-Commander to add someone from the arling side of things to his _'formal escort'_.

"But it's _not_ a formal escort," Theron said, when Nathaniel brought it to his attention. "It's me; you because it's your sister; Zevran and Fen and Alistair, because none of them will let me go anywhere without them; and Mhequi and Lockhard because _they_ won't let Alistair go anywhere without _them._ "

"They want you to take Kallian Tabris," Nathaniel told him. "I know her- she's seriously considered becoming a Warden. She's committed herself well in bandit skirmishes and has shown a lot of promise as commissioned officer material."

"We're not selecting a patrol group, Nathaniel."

"She's an elf with a greatsword."

And so Sergeant Tabris was added to the group.

When the other Captains and Senior Wardens heard about it, they thankfully didn't insist on coming along as well. Oghren sent a grumbling letter from Kal'Hirol, with a much more upbeat and positive addendum from Sigrun telling Nathaniel how happy she was for him. Velanna sent Kallian's cousin Nesiara to convey her Keeper's opinion on the whole thing much more personally; but the rest of them could also tell that it was for her and Kallian's sake, too.

Something had happened with two of them while they'd still been living in Denerim that had given them an uncommonly strong bond. All they really knew was that it had involved a marriage, and that both of them refused to speak more on the subject. Zeran had idly poke around the other elves now living in Amaranthine or in the town that had sprung around outside Vigil's Keep, since a number of community leaders had come from Denerim, but none of them wanted to talk about it either.

Nesiara couldn't stand to live amongst humans, and her only family was about to go off somewhere she couldn't rush in and save her if the need arose. They quietly let the cousins get on with their reassurances in private.

The next morning they set out for Amaranthine. They had collectively agreed to keep their arrival in Kirkwall quiet- at least as much as they could with three armed elves, one a Dalish- so the Warden armor and Zevran's silverite had been packed away against the hope that they'd have to announce themselves formally. Everyone's weapons were battle-worn enough to be ignored, even though they were quality pieces, and they'd dressed as armsmen in Amaranthine's colors and prowling bear instead. Hopefully, they'd pass more unnoticed if everyone thought they were in service to the arling, rather than in charge of it.

The sole concessions to their Warden status were the griffins on Theron's dragonbone shield, and the one on Alistair's engraved silverite shield showing Soldier's Peak that Theron had commissioned as a gift for him. Even then, though, they could hopefully be passed off as just a new part of the arling's livery.

Lodgings had already been taken care of, as well. Nathaniel had spent the first and larger part of his squireship in Starkhaven, but he was acquainted with a few of the well-to-do noble families in Kirkwall, particularly the Harimanns, who had been long friends of Starkhaven's former princely family, the Vaels. He'd sent a letter ahead, and they were to stay with the Harimanns as guests of the Lord's daughter, Johane, who had been one of his knight-master's lovers.

They left for Kirkwall to find Delilah Howe at the end of August, and arrived in the City of Chains in the first days of Kingsway at the head of a brisk autumnal wind.


	2. Chapter 2

Kirkwall stank.

He'd thought he'd be able to manage it, but then they'd come up on the Gallows and he'd just collapsed, overwhelmed. He came to belowdecks, with Theron sitting next to him and the Voshai hovering protectively.

And he'd thought it had been bad three years ago.

"Will you be all right?" Theron asked.

"I just wasn't prepared," Alistair said, surprised to find his voice had an edge of raspiness to it. "But Andraste's flaming sword, Theron, be glad you didn't end up with lyrium poisoning down in the Roads! It's _bad_ here."

There had been something-

He had to get back out into the air.

Mhequi and Lockhard stepped up behind him as he headed for the hatch, ready to catch him if he fell off the ladder.

It was… still bad, and Alistair had to fight his addiction-breaking conditioning to stay conscious.

 _Just let it flow through you,_ he told himself, falling back on Templar training. _Breathe, ignore the tingling, the whispering is all in your head, it doesn't mean anything._

Except he didn't believe that last, any longer. He'd seen enthralled Templars at Kinloch Hold during the Blight, which meant that the lyrium intake made them connected enough to the Fade to be as susceptible to a demon's coercion as a mage. And he'd heard the Archdemon's song since then, lived with the incessant back-of-the-mind noise of darkspawn. The whispers felt like that.

Andraste protect him, he could hear _demons._

At least they weren't clear enough to understand. He wondered if this was how mages felt all the time.

Kirkwall was fetid with the stench of lyrium and mages. Apostates smelled differently than Circle mages- Circle mages carried some of that lyrium smell with them, while apostates didn't. Here, you probably couldn't tell the difference. The Gallows overpowered everything else. Even balanced Templars, who had never given in to their lyrium addictions like the ones here had, would have gotten jumpy and touchy with that sort of uncertainty. Alistair wasn't even a Templar any more, and _he_ was a little nervous.

But- no, concentrate past that, under the lyrium and the mages, and there was the odd seared water scent of the Fade. He'd noticed it in Kinloch Hold, when they'd helped deal with the demons and the Abominations.

That was strong, too. And there was something else, he couldn't tell what. He wasn't sure if whatever-it-was was setting off some Templar instincts that were reactivating from all the lyrium in the air, some Warden ability, or just his own totally human but finely-tuned sense of danger.

"Hey Theron?" he called down into the hold. "When you've got a private minute, there's something I need to tell you."

Nathaniel crouched down next to him, expression strained and worried.

"You can feel it, too?" he asked quietly. "The Taint? It's not very strong. But it's here."

Alistair couldn't. The magic was overwhelming everything else.

Too much lyrium, demons, and darkspawn. Alistair felt entirely vindicated about not letting Theron come to Kirkwall without him. He would have tried to help everyone with their problems and gotten hopelessly entangled and never come back.

He'd probably _still_ try that.

Blast. They'd have to keep a close eye on him.

* * *

Theron fell to the middle of the group, Fen'harel at his side, as they walked from the docks to Hightown, despite being the one in charge. Dalish stood out, and they weren't where he was needed yet. If the guards stopped him, he'd step forwards and take Alistair's place beside Nathaniel.

He wondered if he shouldn't do that anyway. Alistair was noticeably twitchy, and kept starting at random passers-by. The others on the docks were noticing, and kept a little extra distance. No one wanted to set off a jumpy man who obviously knew how to use the sword and shield he was carrying. The people of Kirkwall were giving them a wide berth.

Mhequi was uneasy as well. She wasn't twitchy, but she kept sniffing audibly and suspiciously scanning their surroundings.

Something magical, then.

Not that he himself was necessarily comfortable. There was some hint of the Taint here, and that was all sorts of alarming. They'd have to find Delilah Howe as soon as possible, and then track down the source of that feeling. One overlooked ghoul or unknown tiny side exit out of the Deep Roads could corrupt the entire city. The miracle was that it hadn't happened yet, or that they'd arrived just after it had.

The Free Marches had their own Grey Wardens. Why hadn't they addressed this Did they just stay in Ansburg? Theron didn't have even half the number of Wardens at his disposal that the Commander of the Grey in the Marches did, but _he_ made sure to send long patrols around the country to check up on the areas where the Blight had hit the hardest, and to look into any reports of strange activity that might be darkspawn. He kept people watching the known Deep Roads entrances, and an eye out for any they hadn't known about.

Maybe that was it. The Wardens here had never had to worry about a Blight, or anything like the Mother and the Architect.

But with all the Fereldan refugees who had fled to the Marches, surely they had thought to check the incoming ships for Tainted passengers?

No matter now. The Taint had come to Kirkwall somehow, and they were the Wardens who were here. They'd have to pull out the armor once they'd settled into their rooms at Lord Harimann's estate and inform the Viscount that they were launching an investigation.

And maybe they should send for assistance. The Commander in Ansburg had to be informed, after all, and Amaranthine needed to know that they'd likely be staying longer than expected.

There was a direct route from the docks up to Hightown, gated and guarded. Nathaniel and one of Lady Johane's servants got them through, and they were escorted to the Harimman estate.

Alistair and Mhequi froze as soon as the door was opened, blocking the entrance. Nathaniel had been ahead of them, going to greet Lady Johane, and got a couple of steps into the house before realizing that no one was with him.

"Captain?" Theron asked, hand drifting to his sword. Lockhard had already drawn his, and he trusted the Voshai. If only Mhequi had noticed something, it would have been a cause for concern; but for her _and_ Alistair-

Alistair pointed to Lady Johane, who had fixed a polite smile on her face at their odd behavior. She was standing on the lower, central balcony of the reception hall's grand staircase, overlooking them.

"Apostate," he declared. "And I can smell the Fade in here. _Somebody's_ been a very bad mage."

"Demons," Mhequi said. "Down."

Lockhard sighed and said something Theron couldn't catch. Inlays at the base of his sword flared blue, and twirled it once, a motion full of promise and purpose. The sword hummed on a deep vibrating note.

"There has been some sort of misunderstanding-" their hostess started to say.

"We're not accusing you, Lady Johane," Nathaniel stepped in smoothly. "I believe Alistair when he says you're an apostate, but that doesn't mean you have anything to do with the demons. Someone else in the household-"

There was a shriek from a back room, and the sound of something shattering. It was accompanied by a familiar roar.

"Rage demon," Theron, Alistair, and Zevran said at the same time.

"Sometimes it really worries me that you can do that," Nathaniel told them as the demon burned down a door that led further into the house. He fell bac behind the group, hugging the wall, as Alistair, Mhequi, Lockhard, and Fen'Harel jumped on the demon.

Beside Theron, Kallian had frozen up.

"It's all right," Theron told her. "Rage demons are fairly common, and easy to defeat. They feed on feelings of rage, so as long as you stay steady and clear-headed when you fight them, they go down-"

Something tackled him and he hit the floor, an arcane bolt smashing apart on the stones of the porch-like area just outside the estate doors.

Zevran rolled off him and disappeared. Theron stood up and closed the door. It was better that the city guard didn't get involved with this.

Lady Johane was still standing on the staircase balcony, staffless and casting with her hands. It wasn't particularly precise, but it would be a danger all the same.

Theron shrugged the dragonbone shield off his back and held it the way he'd learned from Alistair- not all of a Templar's training required lyrium to use.

"Commander-"

"Go help the others with the demon, Tabris," he ordered her calmly. "I'm making a target of myself."

The others had the demon well in hand, but Kallian could benefit from taking a few swings at the thing while it was weak and gaining some confidence about the mortal vulnerabilities of demons. Anyhow, even if she just hung back trying to steel her nerve, she wasn't up to the headlong rush up the stairs Theron was making at Lady Johane. With mages controlling demons- say rather mages _controlled_ by demons- the important thing was to interrupt their spell casting. Bashing them with a shield was particularly effective, and the best was when you knocked them down completely.

He did accomplish that, because he'd fought entirely too many demons and mages in his day, but he'd also meant it when he'd said he was making a target of himself. This was a distraction for Zevran to get into position and slide a thin, sharp dagger, into a specific location in her spine.

Lady Johane fell dead instantly, and that was when the desire demon appeared.

"Ah," Theron said, and took a swing. "Alistair!"

There was a great pounding on the stairs and Fen'harel grabbed the demon's tail in his jaws, yanking around violently, like it was a small animal he was trying to kill. The demon turned on the mabari, screaming in outrage, and went down under a storm of blades.

"Good job, Sergeant," Theron congratulated Kallian, because he'd seen her in there with the rest of them, swinging her greatsword like she didn't fear anything. "Not so hard, is it?"

"So, Theron?" Alistair said, as everyone else was trying to catch their breath and Kallian nodded in agreement, expression going a little shocked as she really processed that she'd just helped kill a _demon._ "When I told you I needed to talk with you when you had a private minute? It was demons. The city smells _full_ of them."

"Much demons," Mhequi agreed.

"There are more of them, still below the house," Lockhard interpreted for the rest of them. "I saw more burned doors- there has to be a cellar entrance somewhere."

"Well, we'd better go clean them out," Alistair sighed. "We haven't even been here _five minutes-_ "

"I'll stay here and calm down the household," Nathaniel said. "Someone will have to explain to her father."

"Great friends you've got here, Howe."

"Shut up, Theirin."

"Not my name!"

"Do you want to fight demons, or nobles?" Theron asked, and Alistair grumbled but took point on the way to find the cellar.

"For everyone who doesn't know," he told them, as they cautiously made their descent. The entrance had been in the wine cellar, where a hole in the wall had been partially blocked off. It looked like someone had accidentally unearthed into an old ruin, and that was where the demons had been summoned- or come from, possibly. Mhequi and Lockhard had identified the crumbling architecture as Tevene, and the Magisters were probably not above binding demons and them leaving them places. "Rage demons are single-minded, but they can dissolve into embers and then reappear behind you. Desire demons are weak at close quarters but harder to kill, because they can feed on the edge of your desire to take them down, or not die, or whatever. Just… try not to _feel_ anything and it'll go a little faster."

"But it's all right if you do," Theron reassured them. "You're mortal and we don't expect you to be otherwise. There are enough of us that we can mob a demon and take it down quickly. If we run into one supported by shrieks or corpses or other lesser demons, let and Zevran and I deal with them. They're easy once you have the trick of it, and Alistair will be able to use you more."

"Yes, Commander."

They found another desire demon, two more rage demons, a couple of revenants and arcane horrors, and the usual crop of corpses. At least there hadn't been any obvious tears in the Veil.

Theron and the others emerged from the cellar victorious and only a bit worse for wear. Alistair and Mhequi's nerves seemed to have settled now that they'd actually confronted some of the demons they'd been smelling, and Theron left them to talk to the house guards about getting the entrance to the ruins barricaded so people who didn't know what they were doing would stay away from it.

"Look, I understand that you didn't want to send your only child away to the Circles," Nathaniel was saying to a man clinging to the end of middle age. Lord Harimann, he must be. "But you've had demons in your house now and you should probably get a mage in here to check the Veil and make sure it isn't damaged. I know it will be a blow to your reputation, but the safety of your household has to mean _something._ Your grandchildren still live here, right?"

"It would be more than a blow to my reputation, Lord Howe-"

"' _Constable Howe'_ please."

"-it would ruin me. I convinced the Viscount to send aid to Ferelden and Denerim after the Blight, and the other Lords have been looking for something to legitimately hold against me ever since. This will be perfect, even if it puts them on Meredith's side."

"Who?" Theron asked.

"Ah, Lord Harimann," Nathaniel said. "Warden-Commander Mahariel of Ferelden, Arl of Amaranthine."

"An honor, Ser," Lord Harimann said, and seemed to mean it. That was nice. "Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard of Kirkwall's Templars, up at the Gallows. Everyone knows she's the _real_ power in the city, or at least more than the Viscount. I can only think of a few people who might possibly be able to muster enough support to challenge her."

"Oh?"

"Grand Cleric Elthina, because she's in charge of the Chantry here and can demote or transfer the good Commander," Lord Harimann told him. "The young Lady Amell or Guard-Captain Vallen, who take care of most of most of the _real_ business of keeping the city safe and in order between them, as much as that's possible in a place like this. Most of the city adores them, especially in the lower reaches. The young Lady Amell is the only one the Arishok of the Qunari stranded here will even speak to. The Viscount has to use her as his go-between! And as long as you're here, Commander- you yourself."

"I wasn't aware that the Wardens were so respected here," Nathaniel said. "I didn't get that impression that last time I was here."

"Oh, they're not particularly respected," Lord Harimman said. "It isn't that anyone hates them. They're mostly just a non-entity. Maybe it's different in Ansburg, but I can't recall even a rumor of there being Grey Wardens in Kirkwall in my entire life."

That explained how the Taint could get in. The Wardens of the Free Marches were ineffectual.

"It's because of who you are to Ferelden," he continued. "We have Fereldan refugees crammed into every corner of Lowtown- and every crack and nook under it- and a few have come up the city as well. The most well-known are Guard-Captain Vallen and the young Lady Amell themselves. They both came here fleeing the Blight because the elder Lady Amell is from Kirkwall, and only left when she got married. Between the refugees, the Ladies Amell, and the Guard-Captain, I think you could muster significant support if you decided to try anything."

Was he… _asking_ him to? Why tell him in such detail otherwise?

"And why would I do that?" Theron asked. He wasn't interested in playing Marcher political games- he just wanted the problem of the Taint solved. And the people protected from demons. And for the refugees still living destitute to be able to come home.

Oh no. That sounded like it could get complicated.

"You cannot solve _everyone's_ problems, _'ma'len_ ," Zevran whispered to him in Elvhen.

Nathaniel shot him a pleading look that expressed the same sentiment before turning his attention back to Lord Harimann.

"We can ask Warden Mhequi to take another look at that ruin," he volunteered reluctantly. "She isn't a mage, but she's the closest thing we have. We'd likely be sending for a Warden mage from Ferelden, since I'm sure we'll run into more demons, and we can have whoever comes check the Veil for you once they get here. That way no one else has to know."

Lord Harimann looked relieved.

"That would be _most_ appreciated, Lo- Constable Howe," he said, and then his expression fell. "I just- I wish I knew why Johane _did_ it. We have all we could ever want. What did she need a demon's power for?"


	3. Chapter 3

"There are forty-three Wardens of Ferelden right now," Theron said. "And a good number of potential recruits who are still training in preparation for the Joining. I think we can spare some of the more experienced ones- Voshai, I think. And I'd like Sigrun. I saw dwarves around, and we can't spare Oghren from his command. It's too new."

It was dinner at the Harimann estate, but there wasn't any welcome feasting- understandable, given the day's events- so the Wardens and Kallian and Zevran were all eating in one of the smaller dining rooms, strategizing.

"This place is crawling with demons," Alistair said.

"And these are Warden mages," Theron reminded him. "They survived their Joining. I don't think demons would be as much of a worry after that. If you're worried, would you object to my specifically telling Sigrun that the Templars here will be taking too much lyrium and that there are lots of demons around to guard against in the letter?"

"Sounds fair enough," Alistair said.

"An excellent idea," Zevran agreed. "Though I would ask… one thing."

"What?" Theron asked.

"The Warden armor," Zevran said. " _My_ Warden armor. It seems that we will be here for a time, and while I was not particularly concerned when this was to be a stay of only two or three days, now that I have seen Kirkwall it is clear to me that it is exactly the place an assassin dreams of working- weakly led and with coin to lose on intrigue. The perfect situation for contracts to arise, and for steady work on retainer. I would not be surprised if there are Crows in the city at this very moment. Certainly, there will be people who have had intimate dealings with them."

Alistair squinted suspiciously at him across the table, clearly trying to decide if that had been a double entendre or not. Zevran just smiled slyly at him.

"Some days, _'ma vhenan_ ," he told Theron, tone laden with wistfully-irreverent dramatics. "I think that things would be so much simpler if I were just to take the Joining, no? Then I would not force you to lie every time it is expedient for me to wrap myself in your colors."

Zevran was teasing him a little, Theron knew that. But still, the thought of Zevran taking the Joining sparked a small flare of fear in his heart. There was always the danger that there was a small grain of real desire there.

"We can have it brought," Theron agreed.

"It won't be enough," Nathaniel said. "In Ferelden everyone thinks _'Arainai'_ is a family name, but anyone who knows anything about the Crows will recognize it as a House name. And I think a lot of people in Kirkwall could make that connection."

"Then I shall simply not use it," Zevran declared. The roll of his shrug looked off-handed, and probably fooled everyone else, but Theron knew him better. "In Kirkwall, I shall be Warden Rivasina. Personal aid to the Warden-Commander, so that there is a reason for my usual position?"

Theron found his hand under the table and squeeed it. No one else in the room knew that that name was significant, but they did. Zevran had found a way to both hide from the Crows and reclaim something taken from him, all in the same gesture.

* * *

Courier ships were light and fast and sometimes took risks they really shouldn't, and Theron's letter asking for help and explaining the situation got to the Vigil quite quickly. It was delivered to Leonie, who was unsurprised to be told that things had gotten complicated, and she sent orders on to Sigrun to go up to Soldier's Peak and get some of the Voshai and the mages.

She only arrived with one mage- the newest of the three, Leonie recalled. Viktory Arend.

"What do you do?" Leonie asked her. With only three mage Wardens, if Viktory couldn't handle herself, Leonie would send Sigrun and the Voshai on to Kirkwall without any in spite of the Arl-Commander's orders.

"I never specialized," Viktory said. "I can call some lightning, some ice, some fire. I can cast some shield spells and mind blast people. I can dispel magic and turn bodies into walking bombs."

"Really," Leonie said faintly. She didn't like the sound of that last one. Sometimes she forgot why mages were feared, but and every time the Maker made sure she was suddenly reminded.

Viktory glared at her.

"I haven't had the chance to _try_ it yet," she said. "But I can't think of a better place than _Kirkwall!_ "

There was a worrying flare of anger in her eyes at the word.

"Warden Arend?"

"I was recruited from the Jainen Circle," Viktory said, chin held high. "But I had been there for less than a year. I _grew up_ in the Gallows. Kirkwall's Circle. I know the sort of _things_ that happen there."

"I thought a local guide would be useful," Sigrun said. "And her lightning is _great!_ I've seen her practice at the Peak, and she can bounce it around off practice dummies in armor like you wouldn't believe."

"Well," Leonie said, trying not to let her doubts show, and failing. "The Arl-Commander _did_ put you in charge of the reinforcements. Which Voshai are you taking?"

"Andreas and Rhannur," Sigrun told her promptly. "They had a vote, keeping in mind that the Commander doesn't want to be really obvious. They know they can't hide being foreign but with Lockhard around Rhannur can pass for Ander. And apparently Andreas does a mean Tevinter impression."

* * *

The Wardens in Kirkwall now that three objectives- find Delilah Howe, find and eradicate the source of the Taint, and see if they could help the Fereldan refugees.

The day after they arrived, they started working on the first two. Nathaniel and Alistair went to ask around Lowtown for Delilah. Mhequi, Kallian, and Fen stayed at Lord Harimann's estate to do a thorough sweep of the ruins. Theron, Zevran, and Lockhard went up to the Viscount's Keep to introduce themselves. Lord Harimann had sent a note up the afternoon before, after they'd finished speaking, to inform the man that there were important Fereldan guests who wanted to keep their presence in Kirkwall quiet, but needed to see him.

So the next morning the three of them came early in the morning, and not by the front doors, and were ushering up to see the Viscount immediately.

The seneschal was very good at imitating a stone wall, but the man he worked for was less accomplished. The Viscount did an obvious double-take upon seeing them.

And they made quite a sight, Theron knew, two elves and a human in Warden armor. Lockhard was tall for a human and classical Ander with his gray-blue eyes, in sharp contrast to him and Zevran. Theron had learned that many humans found the full-face Dalish tattoos distracting, but the Viscount seemed more hung up on Zevran's smaller, less impressive ones. He looked a little… scared.

Theron felt Zevran sigh silently beside him. Mhequi had suggested exchanging armor for the day, since they were of a size, but if you took a good look you could see where her armor didn't fit him.

"I assure you, Viscount Dumar," Zevran said. "If the Crows had taken a contract on you, they would not try under so unbelievable a disguise."

Ah, so that was why the Viscount had been staring. It had been brought up, but Theron hadn't thought that it would happen so soon.

"Viscount Dumar," Theron said. "This is Warden Rivasina, my personal aide and one of my advisors. Also with me is Warden Brant."

"This is not what I expected when Arland told me he had important Fereldan visitors," the Viscount told them, after another moment to process the shock. "I wouldn't usually assume, Ser, but I can hardly think that you're anyone but the Arl of Amaranthine."

Theron smiled at him, because that was polite and the man still seemed nervous.

"Commander of the Grey Theron Mahariel Sabrae," he introduced himself. "We'd hoped to avoid this."

"Avoid what?"

"Having to speak with you," Theron said. "We were only supposed to be here long enough to invite the former arl's daughter back to Amaranthine, but when we docked we detected a hint of the Taint."

The Viscount went sheet-white and had to sit down.

"We don't where it's coming from, and it's not very strong," Theron continued. "But as Wardens, it is our duty to take care of it. We don't want to cause a panic and we're hoping to resolve it quickly and quietly, but someone else needed to know. I've sent for more Wardens from Ferelden, and also sent a letter to the Warden-Commander in Ansburg."

"How-" the Viscount was trying to rally in the face of the news. "How many Wardens?"

"There are six of us currently, in addition to a Sergeant from the arling's forces, Kallian Tabris. We're expecting three of five more from Amaranthine. I don't know what Ansburg will send."

Or if they'd send anything, but he wasn't going to mention anything about that. This was enough bad new already.

"I appreciate your concern for the visibility of your search," the Viscount said. "There are tensions enough in Kirkwall about the number of Fereldans we've taken in without everyone yelling about being invaded by Fereldan Wardens as well. And I know there are factions who would, if they learned of the Taint, blame it on the refugees and begin taking their grievances out on them immediately."

"Once the Taint problem is solved, I'd actually like to talk about that," Theron said. "Ferelden could really use her people back. Perhaps if you wrote to Queen Anora-?"

"Yes, yes I think I will. Thank you."

Zevran coughed quietly to get their attention.

"Viscount Dumar," he said. "Some of the Wardens coming will be mages."

The man's shoulders slumped.

"The Knight-Commander won't approve of that," he warned them.

"Every disrespect to your Knight-Commander Stannard," Lockhard spoke up. "But the Gallows stinks of lyrium abuse and your city of demons. She's not doing her job, so she doesn't get to complain when we do ours."

* * *

"Are you nervous enough, or should I let you continue to brood until you're ready to let me carry you out of here?"

"What if we don't find her?" Nathaniel worried ignoring Alistair's commentary to grab his quiver and bow holster. The weight of the full quiver was comforting on the side of his belt, counterbalanced by his paired knives, even though he didn't think he'd have any use for shooting people today. If it made him feel better, he was going to do it.

"Hey, look," Alistair said. He was going out armed as well, with his sword and the silverite shield Theron had commissioned for him, the same as Nathaniel's new quiver and knives. Nathaniel wouldn't have much use for a shield, but he appreciated the craftsmanship Wade had put into it with the engraving of Soldier's Peak. His own equipment had amaranthine flowers tooled onto the leather, and sometimes he just sat in his rooms and admired the realism. "It can't possibly go as wrong as when I went looking for _my_ sister."

"Wait, you have a sister?"

"Half-sister on my mother's side," Alistair told him as they left the estate. "She lives in Denerim. I found out about her after I joined the Wardens, and Theron came with me for support when I went to see her right before the Landsmeet."

"And?"

"She gave me a bunch of shit for being born a _royal_ bastard- like that helped me any- and having Templar training and joining the Wardens while _she_ had to be a laundress. And then she tried to get money out of me and Theron. I never talked to her again."

Delilah wouldn't do that. Well, she might ask for money, but he'd be happy to give it to her. And she wouldn't be rude about it.

Kirkwall was laid out like a loose curl, though you couldn't see it from the water. Hightown stood at the top of the cliff, and the seawards gate led directly down to the docks, a leftover from the days when the Magisters of the Imperium had lived here and hadn't wanted to be forced to mingle with the lesser beings of the rest of the city. It was the landwards exits from Hightown that curved down the natural slope of the rock towards the harbor and the docks, passing through Midtown- also not visible from the water- and then Lowtown.

The docks-to-Hightown road was steep, but it cut a lot of time off when you wanted to get to Lowtown, so that was the route Nathaniel and Alistair took, keeping a casual eye out for anything that might indicate a source of Taint. It was unlikely that it would be found here, but they did have to look.

"Tell me about her," Alistair said.

"Well," Nathaniel said. "She has dark hair like mine, but the Bryland eyes. Honey brown. She was the middle sibling out of the three of us. Father like Thomas best. Sometimes I resented it, but I think Delilah did too, just all the time. He spent whatever time he could spare with Thomas and only cared about her when she was old enough to get married, and then she refused everyone he found out of spite. The one he tried the hardest with was the younger Cousland boy- Aedan, I think his name was. He was the last one she refused, and after that Father gave up on her completely. From her letters it sounded like she just stayed in the Vigil and only left for supply trips to Amaranthine. I guess that's how she met this Albert."

"She sounds like a fun woman."

"They both wrote me when I was first sent to Starkhaven," Nathaniel continued. "But Delilah stopped after not too long. I didn't know her as well as Thomas. And I didn't even really know him. They were both still young when I left."

They reached the docks and spent a moment in the sea air as Alistair braced himself for the walk through an area downwind of the Gallows. They hurried through that section and ended up taking a wrong turn because of it, then had to wander back until Alistair spotted something he remembered.

"That's the Harbormaster's," he said. "I think we get out up here."

He proved right, and they passed some sort of compound guarded by large… people, with horns, who must have been the Qunari, directly across from the Harbormaster's. At the top of the stairs just past that was what looked like slums.

Neither of them had a lot to fear here, between Alistair's sword and shield and Nathaniel's eye for pickpockets, but that didn't really help them. They had to check down every side street for the Lowtown Bazaar, because now that they were _down_ here the directions they'd been given didn't make any sense.

Somehow, they ended up in the alienage, hopelessly lost and disoriented.

The elves of Kirkwall seemed particularly cowed to Nathaniel, or maybe that was just because he was used to Theron and Zevran and Velanna and the elves of Amaranthine. Officially, there were plans for an alienage in the rebuilding city; but realistically, it wasn't going to happen anytime soon, if at all. At least half of the new inhabitants were elves, and it would have been silly to wall off that much space, even without the neighborly feelings everyone had built during the time in the tent city and then working on the same construction crews.

"Uh, hey!" Alistair called suddenly. "Excuse me! _Savhalla!_ "

A woman with a large basket full of lines froze, and then turned towards them. She was Dalish, but the ink of her tattoos was oddly faded and blotchy. Nathaniel only knew enough to recognize that they were the same designs as Theron's, for Falon'din; but he was still pretty sure that _vallas'lin_ weren't supposed to do that.

" _Ahnas vi'dirth'elvhen_ , _shem'len_?" she asked.

"Uh… not really, sorry," Alistair told her. "I only learned a little bit. Um- _nuvenan na son_ , we've gotten lost trying to get to the Lowtown Bazaar?"

The rest of the alienage was watching them, and Nathaniel tried not to look at anyone directly so no one was scared off. People were peeking out windows and from behind the shelter of doorframes or the corners of their eyes to do their best at being discreet.

" _Nuvenan na tas son_ , Ser," the woman replied. "Nathaniel wasn't sure if she was amused or surprised. Maybe both. "If you go back up the steps and out the alienage, and take your first left, the bazaar is up the stairs you'll come to on your right so long as you stay on the main road."

"Oh! That's easy! Thanks- _serannas_. _Falon'din ama na_ , Mistress."

The Dalish woman was shocked absolutely speechless, and could only stare after them as they left.

"What did you tell her?" Nathaniel asked once they'd found the main road again.

"Uh- _'hello'_ , _'I hope you're well'_ , _'thanks'_ , and _'Falon'din protect you'_. But I think maybe I used the last one wrong. I'll have to ask Theron. I just didn't know what to say when she didn't say anything back."

"I think you just surprised her," Nathaniel said. "Being able to read her tattoos."

"I hope so. I wasn't trying to be rude."

"You just thanked a Dalish woman in her own language in an _alienage,_ Alistair, I'm pretty sure she understood that."

"I just saw her and remembered what Theron says," Alistair told him, looking around for the stairs to the bazaar. " _'It's polite to talk to people in their own language_ '. I knew enough Elvhen to small talk, and it was easier to get her attention like that, anyway. Everyone else looked like they'd faint if I tried to talk to them directly."

The buildings were getting slightly nicer, which was really all that told them that they were still going in the right direction. Kirkwall didn't seem to believe in street signs or public markers. Eventually, they came to the stairs. The noise of the market was spilling down to them.

"Alistair," Nathaniel said, staring at the tops of the few stalls visible from this angle.

"It's going to be all right," Alistair reassured him. "If it helps, I can, as the most senior Senior Warden of Ferelden, _order_ you to walk up those steps."

"You forget that I have a higher position than you."

"Technicalities, technicalities," Alistair dismissed airily, and staring climbing the stairs. Nathaniel followed, hanging back when Alistair walked right up to the first stall they passed.

"We're looking for Albert?" he said. "He's Fereldan, and just got a place in the Bazaar recently. His wife's name is Delilah."

The stall keeper was giving them a really strange look.

"I don't know what you want with Albert, Sirrahs, but whatever he owes-"

"We're not thugs," Nathaniel broke in. "Delilah's my sister, I thought she was dead but then I heard she was here."

The stall keeper didn't look totally convinced, but gave them directions to Albert's stall anyway, probably to avoid trouble.

When they reached the right row, Alistair clapped him on the shoulder.

"You can do this," he said. "Seventh one down on the left, used clothing and stitching, right where he said it was."

He could see it from here.

"I can see her," Nathaniel blurted. "Right there, in the back. She's- she's embroidering a border on those cuffs, I'd forgotten she did that. There was this one time King Maric summoned all the nobility to court, I think it was Cailan's sixteenth birthday, I had to come back from Starkhaven for it, and she was so excited to go and she embroidered amaranthine flowers on the borders of all our shirts-"

Alistair gave him a little shove.

"Don't tell _me,_ Howe, tell _her._ "

It seemed to take forever to get to the stall. About halfway there, Albert noticed him coming and stepped deliberately between him and Delilah. Nathaniel froze for a moment, struck with the hugely irrational fear that she didn't _want_ to see him.

Then reminded himself what the letter had said; and that to Albert he was a strange armed man with obvious money based on the quality of his weapons and armor who had been intent on his wife, and kept walking.

Albert seemed torn between outright glaring and trying to look non-threatening and boring, so Nathaniel was greeted with a sort of terrified defiance.

"And just want do you want, Ser?"

Delilah's husband was an average man by looks. Black hair, short beard, middling height, maybe a little muscle-heavy for a man who sold goods all day.

"If there's _nothing,_ Ser, I'd thank you kindly to _move along._ "

"Lilah," Nathaniel managed to tell him. "I'm-"

" _Nate!"_

His sister rushed around the side of the stall to hug him fiercely, and he had a moment of fumbling when he realized that little Emily was resting in a sling across her chest and Thomas was still clinging to her skirt, and had to find some way to hug her around the tiny child-shaped obstructions without crushing either of them.

His _niece._ His _nephew._

" _Lilah,"_ he said. "I didn't- I just knew that when I got to the Vigil you weren't there any longer and then there was this whole situation with darkspawn and the Burning of Amaranthine and then when we were cleaning out rooms in the Vigil I found the letters you left and they said you'd moved to Amaranthine-"

"That must have been a very _thorough_ cleaning, Nate," Delilah told him, smiling through her happy tears. "I hid those very well. I always meant to go back for them after I heard that Father was killed, but then the Wardens-"

"They would have let you in," Nathaniel said. "I didn't- your letter came to the Vigil but Samuel's dead so it got passed to me and Theron- the Arl-Commander- we came- us Wardens I mean-"

"You joined the _Grey Wardens? Nate-_ Father would be _so mad!_ "

"I know!" he said, and couldn't help laughing. It was just that the little twist on her mouth as she said it was so familiar, the same twist that he remembered from her suggestions that they race around the battlements, or take the hunting horses jumping back and forth over roadside hedges to see who would fall off first, or any number of other things sure to set their father off. "I know!"

"Can't you just _imagine_ his expression?"

"Yes, yes I can," Nathaniel told her, and then hit on something that was sure to make her laugh. "Lilah, you remember that one room in Father's suite that was always locked? Right next to the armoire?"

"Of course! Were there _really_ demons in there?"

"No, we got it opened up, and it was where he'd stash Esmerelle when they had their trysts-"

"I knew it!" Delilah exclaimed, vindicated. "I knew it! I _knew_ they were having an affair!"

"-well it must have been where Father put all his money, because it was the most lavish room I've ever seen- gilt and silver and fur and velvet. Silks. Tevinter brocade! I don't even know _how_ he found it! The Arl-Commander took one look at it once I'd explained what it was for, cleaned out the gilt and silver, dumped the big furs and velvets all over the floor and hung the silks and brocade up on the walls, and gave it to his mabari! _'Fen will appreciate it more than the Bann of Amaranthine did, he's actually worked for his life'_ , he said!"

Delilah's laughter rang out across the bazaar.

"I like her," Alistair said. "Go on, tell her."

"Tell me what, Nate?" Delilah asked.

"Lilah," Nathaniel said. "This is Warden-Captain Alistair, the man the Warden-Commander appointed _'in charge of complaining about Soldier's Peak'_."

"It's a hard job," Alistair told her solemnly. "All that snow and wind and cold, unforgiving stone. I don't think I'll lack things to complain about until the next Age, but someone has to do it."

Nathaniel dropped his voice.

"We're here with the Arl-Commander, Lilah," he said. "He would be here, but he had to talk to the Viscount. We came to ask you to come home- as the Seneschal of Amaranthine."


	4. Chapter 4

It was the weekly get-together at the Hanged Man, and Marian Hawke was trying to pretend that it wasn't weird not having Anders there. He'd shut himself away in his clinic ever since the incident with Ser Alrik and Ella the week before, and she hadn't managed to drag him out yet. He kept working himself to exhaustion, and she didn't know how to handle that. Usually Anders was the weakest to her charm and sarcasm, and during the times she couldn't make it work, Varric could get him out.

But you couldn't charm away a lack of sleep, and Varric refused to go talk to him.

"That isn't what he needs right now, Hawke," he'd said. "He's been ignoring his own problems too long to just let this go. Sometimes being a good friend means letting your friends fall flat on their asses before you help pick them up again."

She wasn't really sure she agreed, but there wasn't a lot that could be done- and in weird way, maybe this was what Anders wanted? She'd gone to find him after he'd fled form the Gallows tunnels, and he'd seemed a lot happier with the hard line she'd given him about this _'Justice'_ of his being a demon and not a friendly spirit than the assurance that she didn't want him to leave the city because she was going to find a way to help.

Marian couldn't imagine _wanting_ to fall; but everyone knew Anders was a bit weird, with the _'I turn into an Abomination when I'm angry'_ and being a Grey Warden and his cat attachment and the whole mage justice thing and the way you never knew if he'd be upbeat and happy or gloomy and despairing until you went to see him.

Everyone else was handling Anders' absence by exchanging gossip more freely than usual.

"Hey, Hawke," Varric said. "Do you remember Mistress Del?"

Of course she did. Mistress Del was one of Lirene's friends, and they'd brought a lot of their clothes during their first years in Kirkwall from the man her husband worked for.

"I heard that brother she was always looking for found her, and that they're going back to Ferelden. Elegant said he was in service to some lord of other- she didn't recognize the shield device. Some sort of castle on a mountain?"

"Redcliffe is the only one I know like that," Marian said. "I didn't know she was from down there. Lothering was near Redcliffe. I hope she does well there."

"If her brother is in service to Arl Eamon, I'm sure she will," Aveline said. The other woman had been oddly silent and pensive so far tonight, contemplating her tankard deeply. "Good for her."

Something had better not be wrong with Donnic. Marian was _not_ up to dealing with that again.

She was going to say something about it when Isabela decided to share her news.

" _I_ heard there was an elf with a greatsword in Hightown."

"That's old news, Rivaini," Varric told her.

"This isn't that ghost-elf again, is it?" Marian asked, rolling her eyes. "I swear, I looked into it when the neighbors got hysterical, and there was nothing there! I walked all over Hightown that night!"

"I think it would be interesting to meet a ghost-elf," Merrill said. "I heard he has tattoos, like a Dalish! Maybe he knows stories the clans don't! Could we go looking again, Marian, oh please?"

Marian could think of other ways she rather spend the night with Merrill, now that she'd moved into the estate, but if it made her happy-

"On a warmer night?" she asked. "When I went the wind was off the harbor and it couldn't decide if it wanted to rain or hail."

"It's not Hightown's ghost," Isabela said, bringing the conversation back around. "This one had armor, too."

"So," Marian said. "Even more unlikely than a Dalish warrior ghost haunting the scared rich humans."

"Hey, it's not the most ridiculous thing I heard all week," she said. "I also heard an Antivan Crow got into the Viscount's office."

"Why would people be gossiping about a bird?" Merrill wanted to know. "Is it a very rare sort of bird? Is it dangerous?"

" _Dangerous!"_ Varric said, amused. "They're a group of assassins, Daisy. Very high-end. If one got that far, we wouldn't _have_ a Viscount anymore."

"I knew a Crow once," Isabela said. "He ran away. I wonder if they caught him."

"Would we even _notice_ if the Viscount was dead?" Hawke asked sardonically.

"I like to think that _I_ would," Varric said. "But hey, Captain- is the Viscount dead?"

Aveline blinked, and looked up from her tankard. Then she looked around Varric's private room, saw that there weren't any tavern maids in here with them, and got up to close the door.

Everyone sat up a little bit straighter. The door clicked shut and Marian wondered if the Viscount _was_ dead.

Aveline sat back down.

"I had a Grey Warden in my office a couple of days ago," she told them. "I didn't want to say anything until you were all here. I was hoping Anders would come, but we'll have to tell him later. Anyway, he's probably the safest out of us all, right now."

That was a change. Anders was a chronically unsafe individual. It seemed like there was _always_ someone after him.

"The safest from what?" Varric asked.

"He said there are Wardens in the city because they've detected Taint here in Kirkwall, and are looking for the source."

Everyone looked at Merrill, almost involuntarily.

She crossed her arms defensively.

"It isn't!" she insisted. "I cleansed it! I told you so!"

"But what if the demon was lying?" Varric asked her.

"What use would a spirit have for the Taint?" Merrill shot back. "And I'm not _stupid!_ I tried to help Marethari heal Tamlen and Theron when it infected them, and I know what it feels like! I knew what the mirror felt like before I cleansed it, and it doesn't anymore! I wouldn't have brought it into Kirkwall if it did!"

"Maybe it isn't your mirror," Marian said, trying to keep the peace. "But we should check it anyway, just to make sure. We'll have to drag Anders out of his clinic, but he should know how to find, out, right? Since he's a Warden?"

"I hope it _is_ your mirror, Merrill," Aveline said. "Not because I want you to be wrong, but because if it isn't, that means there's something else that's been corrupted by darkspawn in this city, and we don't know what is."

* * *

Sigrun led her group onto the docks under the blatant stares of everyone in the area. They were overseeing the unloading of their luggage and getting directions to the Hightown road when a pair of Templars strode towards them.

"We do not tolerate apostates in Kirkwall," one said.

"Really?" Sigrun asked. "That's not what we heard."

"I know you, Hathon Dellcreek," Victory said. "I'm with the Grey Wardens now. The Chantry allows it."

"If a mage is not under supervision-"

"I'm Warden Sigrun Kondrat," Sigrun interrupted. "Hi. I'm her commanding officer. These are Wardens Rhannur Nastasa and Andreas Kasteros."

"A Tevene!" the other Templar hissed.

Andreas smiled cooly at him and said something in Tevene in a deep voice. It was long and rolling, rhythmic-

"Stop that!" the Templar said. "Stop him!"

"He's only saying _'hello'_ ," Sigrun said, lying cheerfully through her teeth. She'd gotten pretty good at it when Caron had still been around. "And now _we're_ saying _'goodbye'_. If your Commander really has a problem with us, they can take it up with ours."

She left quick instructions to the sailors about where the luggage needed to get to and hurried her people off to the Hightown road.

"What _were_ you saying?" she asked Andreas, once it was clear the Templars weren't following.

"' _Then did I see the world spread before me'_ ," Andreas intoned. " _'Sky-reaching mountains arrayed as a crown, kingdoms like jewels, glittering gemstones strung 'cross the earth as a necklace of pearl. "All this is yours," spake the World-Maker. "Join Me in heaven and sorrow no more'_."

"Is that…" Sigrun said uncertainly, brow furrowing. "The Chant of Light? But I thought you didn't believe in that?"

"As so," Rhannur said. "Ask Falohiin: Bring us happy times. Ask Duma: Bring us power to overcome. Ask Shaimjele: Bring us home. But Chantry come, is upset. Say: _'Hear now, Andraste, daughter of Brona, spear-maid of Alamarr, to valiant hearts sing of victory waiting, yet to be claimed from the steel-bond forgers of barren Tevene-'_ and Chantry go. Before you finish, every time. Very rude."

He shrugged, then grinned.

"Then turn around, ask Danharqi: Keep them gone. Burn in own sacred fires."

"Oh," Sigrun said, trying not to find that funny. She'd met a couple of persistent Chantry proselytizers since coming to the surface, and sometimes you _did_ just want to shove them in their own braziers. "Oh wow."

"You _have_ to teach me the Chant in Tevene," Viktory said. "So I can use it the next time we meet an uppity Templar, and then I can tell him it's his own fault for not recognizing Andraste's Holy Word. I want to see their _faces._ "

* * *

Everyone met at the alienage the next afternoon. Marian turned up late and frustrated, because Anders hadn't made any response at all to her pounding on his door, and the other people in Darktown said they hadn't seen him all morning. She'd come up here to get Varric and Isabela to see if one of them could break into his clinic.

"Oh, _Marian!_ " Merrill exclaimed, latching onto her arm as soon as she entered. "Arianni shared an amazing story while we were waiting for you! A strange man came into the alienage last week and spoke _Elvhen!_ Imagine, a _human!_ And all he wanted was directions to the market. I wish I'd been here to see it, I would love to know who taught him."

"No Blondie, Hawke?" Varric asked.

"He wouldn't answer the door, not even to yell at me to go away," Marian complained. "He almost always does that! And the clinic hasn't been open all day. I need help to break in and make sure he didn't do something stupid, like run away."

"I don't want to leave that mirror here unattended to," Aveline said.

"It isn't unattended!" Merrill protested. "I pay Arianni to watch it! She does laundry in there."

"That's what I'm worried about," Aveline told her. "If it _is_ the mirror, then Arianni could catch the Taint, and then it would get all over the alienage, wouldn't it?"

Marian sighed. She hadn't really wanted to do this, but-

"We can take it up to the estate," she said. "There are rooms no one's using and we can lock it in one of them. And then use the cellar access to get to Darktown since it comes out right by the clinic anyway."

Merrill was happy about that decision at least, and Marian and Aveline manhandled the mirror out of the squalid apartment and into the alienage square while Varric and Isabela arranged for a carter who wouldn't ask any questions. By mid-afternoon, the eluvian was safely locked up in the estate and the five of them were making their way to Darktown.

The clinic still hadn't opened when they got there. Marian tried pounding on the door again- but again, no answer.

Varric went at it with his picks. The lock opened, but they still couldn't budge the door.

Isabela put her ear to the wood and thumped it with her fist a couple of times.

"It's crossbarred," she pronounced. "I never saw brackets for it on the inside, but he _does_ always keep these doors wide open if anyone else is around, and any unrotted broken roof beam would be sturdy enough. He could hide it in those piles of rubble he always says he'll clear out when he has some free time but never does. The Templars would need to bring a mage along to blast the doors in, and he could be long gone by the time they decided to get one and came back. I'm impressed. I didn't think he was that sneaky."

" _Anders, you son of a bitch!"_ Marian yelled at the doors. _"Open these Maker-forsaken planks of wood or I'm going to_ _ **break**_ _them down!"_

"But Isabela just said that the Templars would need a mage to do that," Merrill said. "Where are you going to get a mage?"

"Merrill," Aveline sighed.

"Oh. _Oh-_ but I was going to be a Keeper! I don't know what the Chantry mages do!"

"It's a wood door, isn't it?" she asked. "Can't you make it into a tree or something?"

"It's dead," Merrill told her. "I can't make it un-dead."

"And undead tree," Varric mused. "Now _that_ would be terrifying."

"Maker's breath, Anders!" Marian muttered to herself, thinking. She'd threatened to break the doors in, but she hadn't been _serious._ If Anders was still there, he'd need them. She'd just wanted to rile him up enough that he'd yell back, and then she'd know he was okay.

Aveline stepped up, and hammered on the wood with her gauntleted fist.

"Anders! Anders, open up! There are _Grey Wardens_ in the city!"

A moment, and then they heard the dull _thunk_ of a heavy wooden beam being dropped from the other side of the doors.

"Oh, for-" Marian said crossly under her breath. " _That_ worked."

The left-hand door creaked open, and everyone slipped inside. Anders shut it quickly behind them, and Marian looked him over critically. He needed a bath and a shave- though he always needed a shave- and probably to eat. And he didn't look like he'd been sleeping at all, even though she knew he'd been healing until he couldn't stand any longer.

"Grey Wardens?" he asked, shoulders tense.

"He was Ander," Aveline told him. "He said there were more of them, because there's a source of Taint in Kirkwall somewhere."

He looked at Merrill.

"We moved the mirror up to the estate," Marian told him before he could make any comments about blood magic and powers you couldn't control. " _You're_ a Grey Warden- could you tell if it had the Taint or not?"

"Any Warden could."

"Great, come on."

Anders' expression grew pained.

"Hawke-"

"Anders," she said firmly. "I mean it. You haven't left in a week. _Come on._ "

Being forceful had never worked before- Anders was sensitive to being pushed around. She didn't like that it was working now. It was really unlike him.

* * *

Andreas sighed.

" _Seven years_ we've been away from the holds, and I _still_ don't understand the things these people do."

"Yeah," Rhannur replied. "At least when we were at Weisshaupt Lockhard could explain some of it. But he's not Fereldan."

"But what they do to lyrium!" Andreas exclaimed. "All of them! It's a travesty! I can't believe they haven't all killed themselves yet!"

Sigrun and Viktory looked over at him for that outburst. Neither of them knew Voshinnen.

"Are you still worried about the Templars?" Sigrun asked.

"No," Andreas answered her in Trade. "With Wardens. Chantry not chase."

Seven years he'd lived outside the holds, and foreign languages still defeated him. It was an old joke amongst the Voshai that you stopped being a baby when you learned Voshinnen, a child when you learned Tevene, and living when you learned Ander.

Having had to learn Ander, and now struggling through Trade and the very bare rudiments of Fereldan, Andreas now _understood_ the joke. Tevene was annoying enough with the dumbing-down of cases and grammar, but Ander and Trade and Fereldan were _stupidly_ simplified and broken into pieces. It took five words to say something he could with one in Voshinnen, and most them didn't actually _mean_ anything. They were only there because no one south of the Wandering Hills had learned how to decline their nouns!

"And they think they know what they're doing with it," Rhannur shook his head sadly. "How can they think that memory loss and blindness and paranoia are _perfectly natural_ reactions to using lyrium? Why didn't they give it up centuries ago? How can they not have realized they're doing it wrong?"

"Because they treat their sorcerers like crap," Andreas said. "How much better off are the Chantry knights than the Circle mages? They're all disposable. They take the mages' children and turn them into their knights if they can't do magic unaided- it's telling that they start off not caring. And look what they grow up into."

"The Captain turned out okay."

"He didn't grow up in the Chantry. He grew up with the stable dogs. They're much better at teaching how to care about other people."

"I bet they do it on purpose," Rhannur said. "Not treating the children right when they're young. If they don't learn about forming family connections and treating other people like people, mages wouldn't seem like much of anything deserving respect, with what the Chantry says about them. I wonder how the Chantry knights treat each other?"

"I'd say ask the Captain," Andreas said. "But he doesn't talk about that part of his life much, and I know he didn't enjoy it. And I bet it's more than just disrupting their socialization- mages' children are more sensitive to magic, and they're stuffing them full of unhallowed lyrium. I'm sure the mages' children make _much_ better knights."

"Sometimes I feel a little sorrow for them," Rhannur said. "And wonder if I should tell them about the unhallowed lyrium."

"They wouldn't believe you. No one would believe us. They think they know what they're talking about and that what we know is just superstition."

"The Commander might," Rhannur disagreed. "He's very reasonable and he likes listening to people. And if we tell him we can make all that unhallowed lyrium he brought back from the Deep Roads safe to be arou- do you feel that?"

Andreas stopped in the road and tested the air. The direct road from the docks opened up into the main Chantry's courtyard, and Sigrun had led them around to the other side of the wall that formed the right side of the passageway. He could see a sort of public courtyard area with a central garden space at the end of the corridor. Behind them was city crowd noise, but no one seemed to be moving around much ahead of them.

The air was still, and laden with a familiar, surprising sensation- the smell of winter lightning on the fjords, counterpoint with the deep buzz-edged thrum of embodied lyrium. The thrum was _just_ off somehow, the slightest bit out of tune, but Andreas didn't know how that could have happened.

"Um- hey! The Harimann estate is this one, with the stairs!" Sigrun called. He and Rhannur had started moving towards the sensation, trying to locate the source. "That's an abandoned building!"

Rhannur stopped and pointed at the derelict door.

"Find Mhequi," he said. "Say: _sovellirajaa_."

Inside, the mansion was a mess. It was badly-lit, with crates that hadn't been unpacked or that were broken open, and just about everything had a coating of dust or dirt. There was a trail through it on the floor, where someone regularly walked.

Andreas couldn't image a _sovellirajaa_ living in such a place, much less so far from the holds, but that's what the thrum and his nose were telling him.

"Do you remember hearing of a _sovellirajaa_ leaving the holds?" he asked Rhannur. "Going missing?"

The other man shook his head.

"Not in a long while."

"Hello!" Andreas called. "Hello? Honorable, your cousins beseech an audience with thee! Why are you so far from the holds? Danharqi and Duma bid us go further under Fjelmari's wings, but what of you? Does Falohiin keep you still? Do you search still for Shaimjele?"

" _Andreas!"_ Rhannur hissed; but whether he was more outraged that Andreas would think that a _sovellirajaa_ would be exiled or that one actually _had_ been was unclear.

"We are far from the holds, Honorable!" Andreas continued. "Please, tell us of what the lyrium sings! Please, drive away the demons from this place!"

The mansion was mostly one floor, with more doors locked than open. The centerpiece of the building was a grand reception hall rising through both stories of the house, dominated by a split-level staircase. Andreas's voice echoed here.

"Your cousins, Honorable! Our ancestors beyond numbering were brothers and sisters in the ships of their parents, in the holds of wood in the salt water, following the lyrium song and the lightning-winter wind and beaching in the shadow of Fjelmari's wings! Please, we are all so far from home! _Please!_ "

There was a creak on the second floor- a door.

"Half a world away they sailed, and half a world we've come again!" Rhannur begged, resolve cracking. "Afoot and ahorse and there is only salt water again, and no ships to sail on! Where is our first home! Where is Shaimjele!"

On the second-floor balcony, a figure appeared, ice-plae and thrumming the lyrium, the lines of a _sovellirajaa_ 's tattoos glowing blue.

"Who are you?" the elf demanded in Tevene. "And what are you doing _in my house?_ "


	5. Chapter 5

They hadn't been exactly sure when Sigrun and the others were going to arrive in Kirkwall, so everyone had been taking turns hanging around in Lord Harimann's foyer to wait for them. Alistair was the one in the chair when Sigrun walked in.

"You only brought a mage?" he asked. "Warden Kondrat, I'm _hurt!_ I thought for sure the Voshai liked me better than this!"

"I brought Rhannur and Andreas-"

"Ah, the ringleaders."

"-but they went to go look at something in the abandoned house a couple doors down. I'm supposed to find Mhequi."

He'd notice that mansion, but it hadn't really stuck out after the first time. He'd been out around Hightown, and the overcrowding that plagued Lowtown didn't extend up here. There were a surprisingly large number of vacant and falling-apart estates.

" _Theron, Sigrun's here!"_ he yelled into the house proper. _"The Voshai want Mhequi!"_

That brought everyone, including Nathaniel with Delilah to introduce his sister to another of the Wardens he'd Joined with. Delilah offered her hand to shake, but Sigrun had already gone for a hug and the side of her face pressed into Delilah's stomach.

"It's so nice to meet you! Nathaniel missed you a lot, it's good that he found you again."

"Why did the Voshai want Mhequi?" Theron asked.

Alistair shrugged.

"That's just what Sigrun said. They went into that abandoned mansion a couple doors down."

"Mhequi," Sigrun said, pulling away from Delilah. "Andreas said to tell you _'sovellirajaa'_."

"Wait, really?" Lockhard asked. "I- wow. Talk about unexpected."

Alistair grabbed Mhequi as she tried to run past him out the door.

"Woah there, Warden," he said. "What's this _sovellirajaa_ thing?"

"Is-" Mhequi said, fidgeting with nervous energy. "Is Voshai Keeper. Warden. Templar."

"A Voshai Templar? I've _got_ to see this."

He let Mhequi go, and the other Wardens followed her out, Theron hanging back a moment to tell Viktory to stay with Kallian and Fen and begin her inspection of the estate's basement.

"Lockhard?" he asked, once he'd caught up.

"I was going to say that a _sovellirajaa_ is like a Voshai Chantry sister, but a Voshai Keeper is probably a better way to explain it," he told them as they walked over to the mansion. "Except not every hold- uh, clan? town?- has one. It's not required that they be mages, but they're all sorcerers."

"What's the difference?" Theron asked.

"A sorcerer is anyone who uses magic, through whatever means. The Voshai would call Circle mages and Templars sorcerers. They don't think there's much of a difference between using magic you're born with and taking lyrium to get power."

"You know," Alistair said. "I'd wondered."

"A _sovellirajaa_ is something who really _understands_ lyrium," Lockhard continued. "As they get better at using it, they tattoo it onto themselves-"

"They _what?_ " Alistair exclaimed, aghast. "And they're not all- they don't die horribly?"

"I don't understand it either, but they seem perfectly sane, and they tend to live a long time."

"That's," Alistair said, and then just shook his head. "I know you chose them, Lockhard, but the Voshai are _crazy._ "

Lockhard shrugged, and drew his sword, pointing to the inlays around the base of the blade.

"That's lyrium," he said. "Mhequi did it for me. She's on the path to become a _sovellirajaa,_ but she hasn't made much progress since we all left the holds. I don't know what she did exactly, but I swear this sword can cut through anything."

"But only Tranquil and dwarves can enchant things! You can't enchant if you're connected to the Fade!"

"Well, Mhequi isn't a dwarf or Tranquil," Lockhard said, resheathing his blade. "And I sat there and watched her do it, along with the _sovellirajaa_ who was judging her skill. So you must be wrong."

Alistair would have thought the mansion was abandoned except for the tracks in the dust and dirt and the sound of the Voshai's voices up ahead. There was someone else in there with them, a deep voice that was ever-so-slight hoarse, but-

"That's not Voshai," he said. "Is it?"

"Voshinnen," Lockhard corrected. "No, it's- Tevene?"

"Interesting," was all Theron had to say about it.

The mansion was built of a kind to Lord Harimann's estate, though not exactly identical. They found Rhannur, Andreas, and Mhequi seated on the floor of the reception hall, ignoring the dust and talking animatedly to a strange elf in Tevene.

"Uh," Alistair said quietly. None of the four had noticed them coming in. "Anyone else here know Tevene? I don't."

Theron knelt right down in the Voshai's circle next to the other elf like he belonged there.

" _Salve, hospita, toba pax. Quis tu_?"

The strange elf blinked at him in surprise.

"Fenris. _Es… unde e arrathanni_?"

Theron smiled at him.

" _Sic, eo e arrathanni. Unde es_?"

The strange elf scowled ferociously and spat on the floor.

" _Minrathous."_

"Why do _you_ know Tevene?" Alistair asked. "Where did you even _learn_ Tevene? You're _Dalish!_ Don't you hate them or something?"

"I know enough to be polite," Theron told him. "I can say _'hello'_ and _'goodbye'_ and ask basic question. I learned it from a book."

"Only because you would not let me teach you what I know," Zevran said. "The offer is still open."

"I don't need to know how to beg for sex in Tevene. Or to ask what sort of accident someone wants an assassination to look like."

"So you say now, _amora,_ but who knows? Life is such an interesting journey."

"Should I ever find myself in a position where begging for sex in Tevene would help my situation," Theron said. "It would only be because I didn't have the good sense or opportunity to kill myself beforehand. _Ele El'vhen'anes banal'halam i din'sal judyir juvaslasir_."

Alistair didn't know what Theron had just said, but it was full of weight and conviction and landed on the conversation like a ton of bricks. Everyone looked at each other uncomfortably as Zevran flinched and refused to meet Theron's eyes.

"I know Trade," the strange elf finally said.

" _Great!"_ Alistair said, hyper-aware that his voice was really too loud, this was how he dealt with uncomfortable situations, just keep ignoring it- "That's good! If you didn't the Voshai have to tell Lockhard what you said and then Lockhard would have to tell us what _they_ said and it would be a pain. _So,_ I'm Warden-Captain Alistair, and the one with the impressively limited vocabulary is Arl-Commander Mahariel of the Fereldan Grey Wardens, I guess you already know the Voshai-"

"I am Fenris," the elf said. "These lyrium-eaters- the Voussae- are with you? I didn't think they ever came this far south."

"Yeah, they're Wardens too," Alistair told him. "The only ones, as far as I know."

Fenris looked at Theron again.

"So you are their commander?"

"Yes."

"I do not know what your plans are," Fenris said. "But your Voussae say they know- what was done to me. I would speak with them more, if they have the time."

"Done to you?" Alistair asked.

The lines of Fenris's skin- wait, the Voshai had smelled a _sovellirajaa_ in here, and _he_ wasn't Voshai but they'd been chattering at him like a long-lost friend, so those were _lyrium tattoos?-_ shifted as muscles clenched.

"I did not _choose_ to have magic branded onto my skin and soul," he said bitterly. "No one asks _slaves_ for their opinions."

Oh great.

"Do you want me to send for Warden armor now or later?" Alistair asked Theron. "I could catch the courier boat Sigrun came in on when it leaves in the morning."

"What?" Theron looked confused.

"No, don't give me that!" Alistair told him. "He's an _elf._ Who was a _slave._ In _Tevinter._ His life was probably one great tragedy-"

Fenris looked very cross about being under discussion.

"I don't remember," he said. "There is nothing before the lyrium. Will you-"

"You shouldn't have said that!" Alistair exclaimed. "Now you'll never get rid of him! He keeps running across people with nowhere to belong and no one to care for them and taking them in! You'll end up a Grey Warden in no time!"

" _I_ am not a Warden," Zevran reminded him.

"And how many times have we lied and said you are because it was easier, since you're always around?" he demanded. "This is, what, the fourth time? First the others lied to Caron, then Nathaniel lied in the paperwork to Weisshaupt, then we lied of a bunch of times when we went looking for Theron, and _this_ time it was _your_ idea, _'Warden Rivasina'_."

"He doesn't look like he's been eating," Sigrun worried. "Fenris, would you like to have dinner with us? We're staying at Lord Harimann's, it's just a couple doors down-"

"It's rude to invite guests over when you're a guest yourself," Nathaniel reminded her.

"Don't," Alistair told Fenris. "Don't. We start associating with each other and then slave hunters or- or Templars or something, they'll sense the lyrium- will turn up and try to arrest you or capture you or something and then _he'll_ invoke the Right of Conscription to get you out if and then we'll be stuck with each other for _forever._ Now, wait- I bet it'll be the city guard, you can't own the deeds to this place."

"It's my house," Fenris said, crossing his arms. "I live in it. And when the Magister I ran away from returns to reclaim it, he will die."

"So you're squatting," Alistair said. "And you've probably been stealing food or something too, because no one knows you're here and you can't be inconspicuous. Great. Perfect. You're _exactly_ the sort of person Theron loves recruiting."

"We could come _here_ for dinner," Sigrun said. "We have more than enough money to buy food, and there's a kitchen in here somewhere."

"And we could help clean," Theron said thoughtfully, looking around.

"Talk more," Mhequi said. "Need real _sovellirajaa._ Not one, but can do best."

"Are you expecting this Magister to return soon?" Zevran asked. "We are quite proficient at killing mages, and even if the others decline, it has been a long time since I have had such a challenge for my skills. And for you, it would be free."

"What?"

"Slavers," Zevran said cheerfully. "Are the scum of Thedas. I would _love_ to see what sort of protections a Magister uses."

"You're an assassin," Fenris realized, and then looked at Theorn. "You have a pet assassin, Arl-Commander Mahariel."

"He isn't a pet," Theron told him. "He's _'ma'len_. My _amatquem_."

Fenris's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline, but he stayed silent.

Rhannur told him something in Tevene.

"Really," Sigrun said. "You need food."

"Would I," Fenris said. "Be able to move freely about the city, without harassment, if I was in your company?"

"I don't think we can promise _'without harassment'_ ," Sigrun said. "There were some Templars at the docks and they didn't like us much. But the Commander wouldn't stand for it. If someone got you in trouble, he'd come get you out!"

"And I do not _have_ to join?"

"If you're not already helping us and claiming to be a Warden recruit, I'll invoke the Right of Conscription if it prevents trouble," Theron told him. "But if you don't want to join, I wouldn't hold you to it. I'd only ask that you leave with us to keep up the lie, and then avoid whoever I conscripted you from once you'd left our company."

"If Danarius-"

"The Magister?" Theron asked. "Zevran and I will help you kill him."

"Then we have no conflicts," Fenris said. "If you would like to have dinner, you are welcome to stay. Food would not be… unappreciated."

Nathaniel sighed, like he'd lost some kind of internal argument.

"If we're going to be associating," he said. "Could we re-base here? I don't want to impose, but our current host wasn't expecting the… _circumstances_ we've found ourselves in."

"For food that wasn't stolen and more arms against my former master?" Fenris asked, and swept out an arm. "All at your disposal. I will help however I can, and accept the pretense of a recruit. I will have no reason to remain in Kirkwall once Danarius is dead, and the notoriety of the Grey Wardens may well draw him here faster. He would never be able to stand the thought that I belonged to someone else."

"Right," Alistair said to no one in particular. "I'll just go catch that boat, then."

"There's no reason to be inefficient," Theron told him. "Delilah and Albert and the children need to go back to the Vigil. Nathaniel can take them, and have Wade make some armor for Fenris, and get us money for our operations here."

* * *

"But you said-"

"I know what I said, and I was wrong," Anders told her. "There's so much magic on it that I can't feel anything else! I don't know if it's still Tainted!"

Marian turned to Merrill.

"If you took the magic off-"

"It's an _eluvian,_ Marian, it's inherently magical! Even if I _could_ do it, that would destroy it!"

"Which I've already said you should-"

"You don't have to be an ass about it!" Marian snapped at him, and felt guilty about it when Anders slumped. That arguing had been the first sign of his real self since Ella, and now it was gone again.

"Just… leave me alone," he said, turning to go. "I shouldn't be surprised. I'm not-"

"You're a good person and I'm going to fix it," Marian cut him off, before he could get all self-depreciating again. "And if you're going to leave at least open up the clinic. People need you, and it will keep you from wallowing."

Varric was frowning at her now, but Bodahn opened the door and Anders slipped out before he could say anything.

"Oh, excuse me-" he said as Anders pushed past him.

"What is it, Bodahn?" Marian asked.

"It's not for you this time, Serah Hawke, it's for Varric."

Somehow, she wasn't even surprised that the two of them were on a first name basis.

"What is it?" Varric asked.

"It's- I was just out at the Merchant's Guild, you see, checking on some things," he said. "And they were saying there's a _Legionnaire_ that's come off the boat from Ferelden! And some Templars tried to stop her because she had a pair of mages from Tevinter with her!"

"Those things separately, I could almost believe," Varric told him. "But both of them together? Someone's spinning tales."

"No, no!" Bodahn insisted. "The Legionnaire is real! I was walking back and there were porters returning to the docks, and they said they'd taken the luggage to a dwarf with her face all tattooed in blocks who was staying at someone's estate!"

"Varric," Aveline said. "What's a Legionnaire?"

"Someone who joined the Legion of the Dead," he told her. "It's the group of dwarves who guard Orzammar form the Deep Roads and wage an endless war trying to reclaim the empire. You're considered ritually dead once you join, and they mean it. You have a funeral, they tattoo a death mask on your face, the whole deal. It's because anyone who goes to fight the darkspawn is already dead."

" _We_ survived," Marian pointed out.

"We were _lucky,_ Hawke," Varric said. "I know you escaped the Blight in Ferelden, but you still don't understand. I'm pretty sure even _I_ don't fully understand how lucky we were, I just know it as a fact. Anders is probably the only one of us who does, being a Warden."

"Legionnaires _never_ leave the Roads, not unless there's a serious emergency!" Bodahn fretted. "And even then it's only to bring the news before they go back in!"

Marian and the others exchanged looks. Could the Taint in Krikwall be that bad, or was there something worse going on that they just didn't know about?

"From Orzammar, you said?" Marian asked. "That's quite a distance."

"There's no one closer," Varric said. "Unless you want to count Kal'Hirol, but I don't know if they have Legionnaires or not. They're too new for me to have contacts there yet."

"Wardens and now a Legionnaire," Marian could hear Aveline mutter. "We _must_ get to the bottom of this!"

* * *

Delilah had insisted that if she and her family were going to get on a boat for Amaranthine tomorrow morning, she had to go introduce them to Lirene _now._

So Theron sent Rhannur to replace Kallian and Fen as Viktory's ruins-sweeping support, and when they arrived himself, Alistair, Zevran, Nathaniel, Delilah, Kallian, and Fen- _"because all Fereldans will trust someone with a mabari!"_ \- followed Delilah's lead down to the docks and then into Lowtown while Sigrun stayed behind to coordinate getting dinner, helping Fenris clean, and moving the Wardens in.

Lowtown residents Delilah knew saw them on the way in, and carried word ahead of them, so Lirene wasn't surprised to see them.

"I thought you'd found your brother and he was taking you back to Ferelden," she told Delilah as the women hugged in greeting.

"Oh, he did!" Delilah said. "He is! Lirene, this is my brother Nathaniel- he and his friends didn't realize how bad things were in Kirkwall, so they're staying to help solve some problems."

"I'm Nathaniel Howe," Nathaniel introduced himself, with a charming smile and an outstretched hand- thanks be for a Constable, or a Seneschal, who knew him well enough to know that Theron didn't how to bring up who he was and why exactly they were here, and had taken the duty upon himself. "Warden-Constable of Ferelden and Acting Seneschal of the Arling of Amaranthine. Delilah's said a lot of good things about you, thank you for what you've done."

Lirene had taken his hand before he'd finished his introduction, and her smile had gone at a bit stiff when she'd realized she was shaking hands with a Grey Warden, and a high-ranking one at that.

"She's said a lot about you too," she told Nathaniel. "Though she didn't mention the family name."

"Understandably?" Nathaniel asked.

"Absolutely," she agreed, and Theron saw Delilah and her brother relax a bit at that. The rest of the room- a few people who had been here buying things or asking for help when they'd walked in, and the store assistants- were listening in intently. Nothing for it then. They'd just have to give up on trying to keep their presence quiet, because the news was going to be all over Lowtown by this time tomorrow.

"Mistress Lirene," Theron said, and Nathaniel moved aside. "My name is Theron Mahariel Sabrae, Warden-Commander of Ferelden and Arl of Amaranthine-"

Someone somewhere in the room made a noise suspiciously like a suppressed shriek of glee.

"-and Delilah said that we had to talk to you if we wanted help."

"I-" Lirene said. "Well, I- goodness! Del, you're just _full_ of surprises today!"

"Allow me to introduce some of my people," he continued. "This is Sergeant Kallian Tabris of Amaranthine's army-"

He saw the moment when she bit back a comment about her being an elf, and elected to ignore it.

"-Zevran Rivasina, my personal aide and advisor; and Warden-Captain Alistair of Soldier's Peak."

This time, Lirene did comment.

"King Maric's bastard?"

"Yes, yes, that's me," Alistair sighed. "Can we move on now?"

"And this is Fen," Theron said, rubbing the mabari's head. He barked happily and wagged his tail, and Lirene couldn't help but smile at him. Mabari were the true weakness of all Fereldans.

"They want to help," Delilah told her. "But there's also something we needed to talk to you about-?"

"Of course. Macha, take over for a minute."

Theron, Nathaniel, Delilah, and Lirene went off into a side room, leaving the others to entertain the customers. Theron explained about the hint of Taint, much to her alarm.

"I haven't heard of anyone with the Blight sickness," she told him. "But I don't know if I'd be the one people told. You really should ask-"

She shut up suddenly and glanced at Delilah, who looked to her brother.

"What?" Nathaniel asked.

"If there was-" Delilah said, and bit her lip. "If you saw an apostate-"

"We wouldn't report them to the Templars unless they were hurting people," Theron promised.

"And maybe not even then," he heard Nathaniel mutter.

The women noticeably relaxed.

"Our healer is an apostate," Lirene explained. "Delilah can take you for introductions. _He'd_ know if there were rumors that anyone had been Tainted."

"Thank you," Theron said. "We'll go directly. If I come back in a few days, or send someone, would you have time to talk about what the refugees need? Or have it written down so we can reference it later?"

"Absolutely. I'll have it ready."

They gathered everyone back up and Delilah led them into what she called Darktown, a whole new area of Kirkwall, a shadow to the city outside. It was built in the original Tevene mines, and air and light got in where the rock had been removed during the construction of Kirkwall proper, but it still smelled stale and probably got very dark and stuffy away from those massive windows.

Delilah took them up and down a maze of wooden stairs and platforms until they reached a dead end walkway that butted up against one of the windows. The long end facing them was a building set into the rock that looked better kept-up than most they'd passed, and had two large doors that stood wide open. A lantern was lit outside, even though evening hadn't set in.

She led them inside, and Nathaniel stopped dead.

Theron walked on, reaching up to grab his lost Warden's shoulders. The healer was frozen in- fear?

" _Anders,"_ he said in wonderment. " _Anders._ You're _alive._ "


	6. Chapter 6

He'd avoided telling people about Justice since their partnership had begun because he hadn't wanted to hear the accusations of _'demon'_ and _'Abomination'_ that were sure to follow. He'd more or less held to that strategy for the three years of their partnership, and even when he'd starting being unable to control himself around Templars, he'd told himself that it was okay. If the Templars were trying to take him in, they deserved it. They knew the risks. He hadn't been about to go back to Kinloch Hold and endure what was sure to be his longest stint in solitary cells, maybe the one that finally broke him, and he would _actually_ kill himself before he let the Templars of the Gallows get him.

He'd thought about it more than once in his life, but planning successful escape attempts had kept him from it during his time in the Circle. Now, the healing skills he'd honed in Amaranthine's tent city and the particularly Dalish tricks he'd learned from Velanna served the same purpose, since the only time he was safe going out in public was in Hawke's company. He could even see Templars when she was around and Justice would let them pass, because Anders had managed to convince him that Hawke would always put things right.

Sometimes Anders remembered that, even in those horrible moments when the Templars had come for Renald and Caron's cronies had turned on Justice, never once with the Wardens had he seriously thought about suicide. It had crossed his mind- he wasn't sure if it was ingrained habit that his eyes would sweep around the room and catalogue all the ways he could kill himself, or if it was just something off about how he was- because sometimes thoughts just happened. Kirkwall was still better than the Circle- just about _anything_ was better than the Circle- but still, in Amaranthine, he'd never done so much as keep a knife handy against the worst-case scenario of the Templars cornering him without support.

The Wardens had been safe, even in those awful moments. Nathaniel had come running into his tent bound and determined to help him run away as the others stood watch to keep the Templars occupied; and Justice had fought alongside everyone else at the Keep. Caron's cronies hadn't exactly been Wardens, not to Anders. They wore the colors and had taken the Joining, but they didn't have any loyalty to the Commander. They'd never even met him. They might as well have been Templars, or Orlesian soldiers, or militant Chantry lay supporters- they hadn't been _his_ sort of Wardens, the Commander's Wardens.

And now the Commander had just walked into his clinic, and looked at him like he was so relieved to find Anders alive but sad to realize that he'd run away and hadn't even sent word that he was all right, but Anders knew that he wasn't the same person the Commander was missing. Caron's people hadn't been his sort of Wardens; but now _he_ wasn't, either.

He was an Abomination, and had been since he'd accepted Justice, he'd just been denying it, telling himself that his newfound devotion to saving all mages was the natural progression of his own circumstances. But if he'd _really_ been dedicated to saving mages, Hawke wouldn't have had to talk him down from killing Ella- Bethany's favorite _apprentice_ Ella, whom she'd never see again because the whole Circle would have known that Ser Alrik had gone after her, and Ser Alrik wouldn't be coming back. Ella hadn't had her Harrowing yet there had been no _reason_ for her to suspect the existence of Fade spirits that weren't demons-

Hawke had told Ella to get out, and Anders had told Mistress Selby to send someone after her, to help her get out of the city. Usually he'd do it himself, but Ella would never trust him now. The rest of the Mage Underground would have to do this themselves.

Anders couldn't. He wasn't even sure that he should associate with the Underground any longer, much less Hawke and her group. Hawke had named Justice a demon he was finally ready to accept the truth, which meant that he was an Abomination and he owed it to everyone else's safety to just kill himself already. Otherwise, the people he'd always tried to help would be tarred with the same brush. The Chantry would never listen to apostate mages led by an Abomination and no one would trust Hawke or Aveline or Varric if they were tainted by association to one.

He would do it, kill himself; except Justice wouldn't let him.

 _You must do your duty. You are not allowed to do otherwise. I promised._

Justice- Vengeance didn't even have to say it again. The once had been enough, after running from the Gallows lyrium tunnels and Hawke catching up to him as he tried to clean the clinic up for whoever would get it after she killed him; and then when she refused to get rid of him for whoever would get it after they'd found him bled out or drowned or hung somewhere.

But when he'd tried, after Hawke had left, telling him that she'd find a way to fix him and he knew he had no other options left, his demon had thundered it at him and driven him to his knees.

 _Nathaniel didn't mean it like this!_ Anders had screamed back at him. _He meant that you were supposed to keep me from distracting myself worrying about Caron's people so I could do a thorough investigation of Amaranthine! Or to keep me from running away! And we_ _ **did**_ _that!_

 _We have a duty above all else. The Templars cannot stand. The Circles cannot stand._

 _No,_ Anders had thought to himself, because it was useless to argue. Vengeance got what Justice wanted. _I was scared of the Templars and the Circle, and angry; and you wanted someone held to task for trying to kill you._

The one thing that he could almost find comfort in, in this situation, was that to Justice, the Grey Wardens _were_ the Commander, in a way much more literal than Anders's feelings on the matter. The Commander had found Justice in the Fade, identified himself and Anders and Sigrun and Oghren as Grey Wardens, and agreed to help. Anders wasn't sure that Justice had entirely grasped that _'Grey Wardens'_ weren't just a sort of mortal spirit whose purpose-name was _'killing darkspawn'_ instead of _'Compassion'_ or _'Pride'_ or _'Mercy'_. Certainly he'd approved of Anders going into the Deep Roads, even though there hadn't been any Templars to fight there.

Just a couple of things different, and maybe he wouldn't have come here. He would still be in Amaranthine, and all of the other Grey Wardens- all of his friends- would be dead at his hands because of what Caron had ordered. If the Orlesians had tried to kill Justice with Warden techniques instead of Templar ones, it could have happened.

Anders had thought that since he couldn't stop himself, and Hawke had refused to stop him, that the only way to go was forwards- go farther, go faster, do the things the other mages shouldn't do because they had to stay respectable and clean of spirit, conscious, to have half a chance of making a case that would work. If he- if he threw himself into fighting Templars, turned full vigilante, ambushed groups when they were going after apostates and escapees or when they were collecting children- if the other mages didn't have a record of killing people, Templars-

He could be the martyr for the cause. It was all he was good for, all he was worth, anymore, because of his own stupid decisions.

Except that the Commander had just walked into his clinic, and now he had another chance out. This was the man who'd razed through the demons of Kinloch Hold, who'd never hesitated in killing an Abomination but had put himself between the Templars and the uncorrupted mages they would have killed. The man who'd found a serial escapee standing over the dead bodies of the Templars who'd come to drag him back, and believed it when he'd said that that it wasn't his fault. Always trusted him completely.

" _Anders. Anders._ You're _alive._ "

He'd opened the clinic and been seeing to the couple of people who had shown up. What must they think now?

"Commander Mahariel," he said. "I- I'm sorry, I really- I didn't mean to-"

Maker only knew what the man was thinking in that moment, or what Anders's own face looked like, because the Commander shifted his hold and pulled Anders into a hug.

No one hugged him here. Renald had, and Sigrun had usually been up for it if he'd asked, and Karl would have if only Anders had gotten here in time-

He hadn't thought about Karl in a long time, he realized suddenly, and Karl had been the whole reason he'd run to Kirkwall specifically. He should have been thinking of him every time he saved a mage, helped someone escape the Kirkwall Templars.

Except something like Justice or Vengeance didn't care about people, just The Cause. Demons would prey on people's feelings towards others, but once they'd wriggled their way into a body, they didn't need to rely on that any longer; and the illusions, the reassurances, the friendly words- all discarded, because the demon had better things to use their energy on.

Anders hadn't thought about Karl since the handful of days just after finding him Tranquil in the Chantry, bait for a Templar trap; and he broke down crying as much for his old friend's death as for his own.

* * *

It turned into a group hug, because once Anders started clinging to Theron and sobbing into his shoulder, Nathaniel had snapped out of it and hugged his old friend from behind.

"Group hug?" Alistair had asked. "I like hugs, group hug!"

And then he'd thrown his arms around everyone's shoulders so he could reach them all, even though he'd never actually met Anders.

"I think he's done for the day," Delilah told the other people in the room. "No, I have coin now- here, go to the apothecary, I'm sure he'll be around tomorrow-"

The doors were shut and the crossbar dropped in place. Anders didn't cry himself out until some time after that.

"It's all right," Theron said, once it seemed like his wayward Warden would actually be able to reply. "I'm not mad."

"We thought they _killed you!_ " Nathaniel exclaimed. "What _happened?_ "

"They went after Justice," Anders told them, tone bleak. He clung a little tighter at the memory, and Theron squeezed him comfortingly. "I was sure they were going to go after _me_ next. I don't know if they actually were I just- I panicked and then they were _dead_ and then I couldn't go back to Caron so I panicked again and dressed Kristoff in my armor and dumped Justice's into the harbor and then burned everything until you couldn't tell who was who any longer-"

"Caron's dead," Nathaniel interrupted suddenly. "Anders, I-"

"He just disappeared," Theron explained. "Only a couple of days after that. I don't know for sure what happened to him."

It had the upside of being, quite technically, the truth; and he'd like to keep it that way. He wasn't going to ask Nathaniel about his suspicions, and if he tried to bring it up again, he'd talk right over him again.

"Amaranthine is safe for you now," he said. "Come home, Anders."

He felt Anders take a deep breath, and then his Warden pulled away. Everyone shuffled position to give him room, and Theron noticed that Anders couldn't meet his eyes.

"I've made a horrible mistake," he said. "I can't come back. When they went for Justice, I- I've known people before who were killed by Templars. I didn't know him _well,_ but I knew he wasn't a demon and didn't deserve to be killed. So I invited him in. To me. I just couldn't stand to see anyone else I knew killed by Templars and the next thing I remember after Justice is all those other Wardens dead and I told myself it was fine for a long time but now I can't be around Templars without losing myself and I've- it's _my fault_ I was trying to help I didn't want him to die but I did something _worse-_ Justice- Vengeance- he's a demon now because of the things I've thought, the things I _feel_ and I know I look functional but I'm _not._ He won't let me kill myself and I'm not in control and Hawke wouldn't- I can't go back, Warden-Commander. I need you to kill me-"

" _No!"_ Nathaniel exploded.

"Please," Anders asked, and Theron didn't know what to do. "You cared enough to save me from the Circle and now I need you to save me from myself. If you don't do it, I'm going to have to find some way to get myself killed for The Cause, because I'm not going to be able to hold out much longer against Justice. Vengeance. I realize that now. I almost _killed_ this mage I was trying to save from the Templars. She's only an apprentice and all she did was call Justice what he is and if I'd gone in there alone like I'd planned, I would have-!"

"' _The Cause'_?" Theron asked. He trying to stay calm and reasonable but this was one of _his_ people, the ones he was supposed to be charged with, one of his clan. They'd thought Anders was dead and he wasn't, but for the first thing he asked was _'kill me'_ -

"Mage rights," Anders said bitterly. "Mage _justice._ That's what it started out as- what it's supposed to be. But now it's just vengeance for a life in the Circles. For _my_ life, for the people I've known, Karl and Renald and- that's not what it _should_ be, the rest of the Mage Underground I just about getting people out of the Gallows. I know some of them run away to other Circles and the Senior Enchanters cover for them. The Templars here-"

"Are out of their minds on lyrium?" Alistair suggested. "We'd noticed."

Theron did a quick check of the rest of the room. Nathaniel was still obviously upset, Zevran was holding his opinion and his expression, Delilah and Kallian were looking very thrown, and Alistair- was not going for his sword?

"I think it makes it easier to lose control," Anders said. "Having lyrium everywhere. It weakens the Veil but even then there's just something _wrong_ about this place. I don't understand- there's nothing that Kirkwall touches that it doesn't eventually destroy-"

' _Including me,'_ Theron could hear very clearly.

"We just got you back!" Nathaniel said forcefully. "We're not going to just _kill you-_ we're going to find some way to fix it, we're _good_ at fixing things-"

"You can't _fix this!_ " Anders yelled. "You can't _fix demons!_ You can only kill the people possessed!"

"I met someone who said they could."

Everyone but Alistair and Zevran, who'd been there, stared at him.

"Yeah, well," Alistair said, crossing his arms. "He's dead now. They're _both_ dead. And unless you're backing out of that whole _'no blood magic'_ thing, in which case we're going to have a _talk-_ "

"We don't need blood magic," Theron reasoned. "You just have to send someone into the Fade to fight the demon there. The problem is it takes so much lyrium- but we _have_ that much lyrium. Many times over. Anders just comes back with us to Amaranthine-"

"It won't _work,_ Commander," Anders said. "I've been in the Fade since- _this._ Justice wears my body there. We're inseparable."

That was an interesting tidbit.

"What happened that you were in the Fade?" Theron asked.

"There was this elven-blooded boy, Feynriel, who was a special type of mage," Anders explained. "A _somniari,_ it's some kind of Tevene thing. He could enter the Fade at will, control it much better than other mages. He got- caught, in his dreams, by some demons, and his mother asked Hawke for help. We'd saved him from slavers and the Circle before and sent him to the Dalish, so the local Keeper sent Hawke and I and some others into the Fade to save him. I don't remember any of it. I was Justice the whole time. But we saved the boy. He went off to Tevinter to see if they could help him there."

"Well…" Alistair said, rubbing his chin. "Okay, that's when _you're_ sent into the Fade, but you'd be like that mage boy in this situation, right? Couldn't we just get in there while you're dreaming, and then you and Justice would be different people again? Different bodies, I mean? You're clearly still separate people. I've never heard of an Abomination that asks to be killed before they can hurt anyone. That's not really how they work. Right now, you're still just in a lot of trouble."

Theron looked at him in surprise.

"You're… not against this?"

He'd thought for sure that Alistair would have been urging him to do what Anders had been asked. The only time he'd been at all hesitant to do something about demon- an Abomination- had been at Redcliffe, and that had been entirely for emotional reasons. He'd never met Anders before this.

"I mean," Alistair said, and shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not- if it was anyone else, I don't know-"

He heaved a sigh.

"It's just that he's one of _yours,_ Theron. Both of them are. And I know how you feel about that."

Theron hadn't been this accommodating at Redcliffe. He thought he'd made his peace with it, but- maybe not. Somehow, he'd have to find a way to beg Alistair's forgiveness without hurting their relationship.

"Thank you," he told Alistair, because right now wasn't the time to bring it up. That was something for later, in private. " _Nuvas ema ir'enastela_ , _lethal'in_."

Alistair's mouth quirked up into a small, abashed smile.

"Just don't let any Dalish catch you saying that, huh? They might decide to kill the unworthy _shem_ to save you. Or maybe they'd kill us both. That would be really inconvenient. Who would look after the Wardens without us around?"

"I like to think I'm good at my job," Nathaniel said.

"You're a child, Howe, a child," Alistair told him.

"I'm older than you."

"Not in _experience._ You've never even _seen_ an Archdemon. And only by two years!"

"Children, children," Zevran said. "Father loves you both just the same."

"What?" Theron asked, at the same moment that Alistair gave him a very affronted look and exclaimed: "Not funny!"

"Zevran," Theron sighed.

"But they bicker like brothers, no?" Zevran asked. "And you _are_ the one in charge."

"Even if he was older than me," Alistair said. "Which he _isn't,_ I'm _still_ the most senior Warden here! And anyway, I've known him longer than you!"

"By a scant few weeks."

"They were _very intense_ weeks!"

"Anders," Theron said, deciding to let the others argue- bicker- if that was what they really wanted to do. "Which clan was this? Are they still nearby? If they are, I can ask a favor, and we won't need the lyrium."

"Oh, they're still there," Anders said. "They've been here even longer than I have. I don't know which clan it is, but their Keeper is called Marethari if that helps any."

Theron felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, and Zevran and Alistair stopped talking at hearing _'Marethari'_ \- they knew that name too.

"About," Theron started to say, and then had to stop and swallow down the lump in his throat. "About this tall? _Vallas'lin_ for Sylaise-"

He realized that Anders wouldn't know, and started miming the proper curves of the tattoo mask on his face.

"Yes? Maybe?"

"Where are they?"

"They're camped near the top of Sundermount-"

"Right," Theron said. "I'm going. How do I get there?"

"It takes a couple of hours to walk up there, you won't make it before dark-"

"I'm _Dalish,_ " Theron said, more sharply than he'd intended to. "If I can't walk up an unfamiliar mountain in the dark then I didn't deserve to get my _vallas'lin_! That's _my clan,_ Anders!"

"And they will still be there in the morning," Zevran told him soothingly. " _'Ma vhenan._ They have survived this long without you, and you without them, and you have promised dinner to that Fenris already, remember? We can go in the morning, and then you will have all day for Anders and seeing everyone again."

"Imagine the look on Sigrun's face if come back to Hightown in a couple of days and she realizes that Anders wasn't dead and you didn't tell her right away," Alistair said, and no, they couldn't have that.

"First thing in the morning," Theron grudgingly agreed. "And I _mean_ first thing. As soon as they open the gates for the morning, we're leaving."

"I'm supposed to be on a ship in the morning," Nathaniel said. That was probably a complaint, not a reminder.

Theron looked to Delilah.

"Do you mind putting it off for a couple of days?" he asked. "It will be a slower boat, but I'd like Nathaniel here for this."

"Anders saved Emily and I," Delilah said. "He's saved a lot of people. Albert and I can wait as long as you need us to, if it means saving _him._ "

Good.

Anders was looking around at them all with an indescribable expression on his face.

"All right, Commander," he said. "If you think it could work. But if it doesn't- promise me, please."

"I won't let you hurt anyone else, Anders."

* * *

They spent a little more time in the clinic to allow Anders to pack up his things, because now that they'd found him Theron was bound and determined not to misplace him again. It was a maddeningly protective feeling, and he realized that he'd have to apologize to everyone a lot more thoroughly than he had before about the time that _he'd_ been missing. This was _awful._ It felt like Anders would just disappear if he wasn't looking at him.

He'd really, really have to apologize more to Zevran and Alistair. Especially Alistair, since he had Connor to talk about again.

"No, not that way," Anders told them, when Delilah tried to lead them back the way they'd come. "Through here. It's faster, and- there's something that needs Wardens' attention. Wardens who are better at Warden things than me."

They followed him through a series of passageways until they emerged into an estate cellar, familiar in generals if not specifics from Lord Harimann's mansion.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" Alistair asked doubtfully.

"I know the woman who owns this place," Anders said. "We're fine."

"Oh!" Delilah said. "So this is Hawke's cellar?"

Anders nodded, and led them up to the main floor. The cellar didn't open up into the kitchen, but a back room at the end of a hallway.

"Who _is_ Hawke?" Theron asked. She'd been brought up a number of times by now, and was apparently quite important, but no one had bothered to explain.

"She's," Anders said. "I don't really know how to describe her. Maybe a mercenary vigilante, an adventurer-for-hire-"

They were almost at the end of the hallway when an older woman rounded it ahead of them, and startled badly at the sight of a group of armed strangers in her house.

"It's okay, they're with me," Anders told her. "We're just taking a shortcut."

The woman gathered herself and smiled welcomingly at them.

"I'm used to Anders turning up unexpectedly, but usually he doesn't bring guests," she said. "Welcome to my home."

"Commander, this is Lady Amell," Anders introduced them. "Leandra, Theron Mahariel, Arl of Amaranthine and Warden-Commander of Ferelden."

" _Anders!"_ she gasped. "You brought _the Hero of Ferelden_ up through the _basement?_ "

"Sorry, Leandra."

"You should be," she mock-scolded him. "Now go fix yourself something from the kitchen as punishment."

He very almost smiled at that.

"Yes, Leandra."

"Go on, shoo."

Theron watched him scurry off.

"You take care of him?" he asked.

"I do," she sighed. "Maker knows he doesn't do it himself. That boy needs someone looking after him, and well- I had a son, once before the darkspawn; and my husband was an apostate. He hated living in the Circle as much as Anders did."

"Thank you, Lady Amell."

"Oh, call me Leandra. All of my daughter's friends do, and you clearly mean the world to Anders."

"Theron, then," he said. "I do?"

"I can tell he's been crying." Leandra said. "But he almost smiled. He wouldn't do that if _you_ had been the one to make him cry, which means he was crying _with_ you, and I've never known him to do that before. Once I caught him in the kitchen in the middle of the night sniffling, and he clammed right up when I came in. He doesn't cry where people can see him, that boy, but he did with you. _And_ he took you through his escape route. He trust you more than he trusts my Marian, and he went into the Deep Roads with her."

"He did _what?_ " Alistair asked.

"It's why we're here," Leandra explained. "I wasn't in Kirkwall when my parents died, and my brother- he lost the estate and the family fortune trying to settle his debts, and my daughters and I didn't arrive from Ferelden with anything. We lived in Lowtown for two years until Marian won a place as a partner in an expedition to the Deep Roads to go looking for old treasures in places where the darkspawn wouldn't be, because of the Blight. She came back with a fortune."

Well, that was likely their problem right there! This expedition must have brought up a lot of things from the Deep Roads to get the sort of money needed to buy a place like this, and any one of the items they'd recovered might have accidentally carried some Taint with it. It just depended on what they'd found.

"I think we'll have to speak to your daughter about that," Theron told Leandra. "It might help us solve a problem that's been vexing us for a couple of days."

"Of course," she agreed. "Marian isn't here right now, she and her friends went chasing some rumors in the market. They're always off doing things like that. But I can tell her you were, unless you'd like to stay for dinner-?"

"We have a previous arrangement," Theron said. "But thank you. Would two days from now be a good time?"

"I'll make it be a good time."

Anders came back from the kitchen with a plum and a hunk of bread he'd stuffed a bit of cheese and recent meat scraps in. He held them out for Leandra to inspect.

"Good enough," she told him. "But don't leave without getting a basket from me- and I _mean it_ when I say it's for you. I know your patients don't eat enough, but that's what I help Lirene for. Magic is work, just like anything else, and if you don't eat you'll make yourself sick."

"Speaking of Lirene-" Delilah spoke up from the back of the group.

"Del!" Leandra exclaimed. "I didn't see you there, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she said. "Wardens are very distracting. Leandra, this is my brother Nathaniel, we were just down in Lowtown speaking to Lirene about how the Wardens could help out-"

She drew her brother and Leandra off to the side, and Theron turned to Anders.

"You had something that needs Wardens?"

"This way."

Anders led the rest of them to a room in another part of the house, and looked surprised when it opened.

"They forgot to lock it," he muttered to himself. "Amazing."

And then Theron got his third shock of the day, because standing there was the eluvian that had started everything, at least for him.

"Where did you get _this!_ "

"So you know what it is?" Anders asked. "It's not mine."

"This thing almost killed me," Theron said. "It did kill one of my best friends. This is why I joined the Wardens."

He heard Kallian say _"oh,"_ very softly.

"This is _that_ mirror?" Alistair asked. "Why is it in someone's _house?_ "

When he'd gone to retrieve a piece of the eluvian to find Morrigan, he had wondered where the rest of it was, but he'd assumed that the darkspawn had taken it- maybe even the Architect. It had been Tainted, after all.

"Oh," Ander said. "Then- I'm sorry to tell you this, but- did you know Merrill well?"

"She was my other best friend," Theron said, not liking where this was going. "Tamlen, Merrill, and I- we were family to each other. None of us had our parents any longer. Tamlen was like my brother, and if I'd stayed, Merrill and I would be married by now."

Zevran touched his hand lightly.

"You love her?" he asked, and Theron grabbed his fingers.

"Yes," he said. "Not like you. She's a sister to me, and- it wouldn't have been about love. She's going to be Keeper, and my father was Keeper before Marethari. It would have been the best chance to have a mage child born in Sabrae. You don't get a choice when something like that is at stake."

He pulled Zevran closer.

"' _Ma'sal'shiral_ , _'ma'len_. Not her. Never her. Never anyone but you."

Zevran turned a little pink in the cheeks- good, the point had gotten across.

"I always feel a little weird when they do that," Alistair confided to Kallian. "Like, am I supposed to _leave?_ I wouldn't before, but now I know what they're saying when they call each other those names."

"I didn't think the Dalish were anything like city elves," Kallian said, which wasn't really a reply at all. He'd have to ask about it later.

"You don't have to leave," Theron told him, still looking at Zevran. "You don't call people these things if other people aren't meant to know."

"Commander?" Anders said, sounding very reluctant. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this. But I don't think Merrill's going to be Keeper. She- left. She's got her own problems. A demon taught her blood magic."

" _She what."_

"She never listens when I tell her it's not worth it!" he said. "She brought the mirror with her in secret and tried to get the Taint out of it, and she says the blood magic the demon taught her got rid of it, but the thing just feels like magic to me and I can't tell. The magic overwhelms everything else."

"It just smells like a lot of magic in one place to me, too," Alistair said. "Theron?"

He couldn't feel any Taint from it, but-

"You said blood magic?"

"Yes."

It made logical sense, even. Just because he'd killed the Architect didn't mean he hadn't listened to him, and he remembered what the emissary had said. The Joining and the Awakening were flip sides of the same process- and both were a sort of blood magic. It seemed like the more they learned about the Taint, and the Blight, and even the Wardens as an institution, the more it was all caught up in blood and forbidden magic. All Merrill would have done here was replace one type of blood magic with another, and not even a less dangerous one.

"It doesn't work," Anders told him. "Merrill's always complaining about it."

"Good," Theron said, and drew his sword. It had been Duncan's and he got a little spike of satisfaction from the knowledge that the same blade that had shattered this mirror in the ruins was the same one to do it now in this room.

The crash and tinkling of glass stopped, and the room seemed very quiet.

"She won't like that," Anders said.

"She doesn't need to," Theron told him. "Would Leandra have a sack we could take? I'm not leaving this here."

* * *

Anders was a little surprised at how willing he was to let the Commander try to fix him, when he hadn't been with Hawke. Maybe it was because the Commander was who he was, while Hawke- wasn't that. Not in a bad way. But too different. She exuded competency and a willingness to kick ass, not a feeling of trust and security and responsibility. Or maybe it was just the bias of his experiences with them, because plenty of people seemed to trust Hawke on sight for some reason.

Or maybe it was because now that he'd had a minute, and realized that because the Commander hadn't killed him on the spot, he now had the chance to see at least some of his old friends. He could spend time talking to Nathaniel. He could get hugs from Sigrun. He could ask the Commander for more funny stories from the Blight year. He didn't know who else was here, but knowing that there were even just _three_ Amaranthine Wardens around who knew him was… nice.

Hawke and the others were friends, of course. Well, maybe just Hawke and Varric and kind of Aveline. But they'd never known him when he was _him._ They'd only known him as a runaway Grey Warden apostate with a demon problem.

Once the Commander had gathered up the mirror pieces, he led the group into a part of Hightown Anders remembered from going after Bartrand. In fact, the abandoned-looking mansion that turned out to be their destination was right across the square from Varric's brother's place.

Someone had unboarded the windows and stacked a bunch of crates out front. The Commander moved towards them like he was going to check them, but Zevran and Alistair each grabbed an arm and held him back.

" _No,"_ Alistair told him. "You don't need to do that. _We_ don't need to do that. Let trash stay trash."

"I am certain that Sigrun went through them herself," Zevran said. "You teach your lessons well."

The Commander really did. Anders found that he was having to restrain himself from checking the crates as well, _just in case._ It had been a habit he'd picked up working for the Commander, and he still remembered the first time he'd gone out with Hawke and Varric and Aveline on a job, the one where they'd picked up Merrill. Neither he nor Merrill had realized that the other three had been staring at them until they'd already thoroughly taken apart the first cave where they'd run into giant spiders. Merrill had gone to look over the spiders, and habit had just… taken over. Merrill had explained it as a Dalish thing to the others, and complimented him on his foraging abilities. Then the others helped out on the rest of the caves, and the habit of it had just spread as they'd added new friends. It had financed the majority of Hawke's buy-in as a partner on the Deep Roads expedition, even if Hawke still categorized most of what they found as _'junk'_.

Bonding over thorough looting could have been the start of a beautiful friendship for him and Merrill, but blood magic tended to put a damper on happy fuzzy feelings.

Before the Commander could protest, the mansion door opened, and a woman he didn't recognize swept out a large pile of dirt into the street.

"Commander!" she said, surprised to see them. "How did it go?"

"Very well," he replied. "Viktory, this is Anders. Anders, this is Viktory Arend, one of the mages we Joined when we lost you."

Anders could _see_ her knuckles go white from clutching at the broom handle.

"You said he was dead!"

"Happily, it turns out we were wrong," the Commander said. "How's dinner coming?"

"Lockhard is helping Sigrun cook," Viktory reported. "When I was in there last, she was explaining to Fenris why it was unacceptable that he didn't have any pots or pans. Everyone else has been cleaning. We got the kitchen and a couple of rooms around it clean enough for now, and I've almost finished the foyer."

"Good," he said. "Viktory, I'm going to leave this sack by the door, and it is _not_ to go out in the trash. Don't even _touch_ it."

"What's in it?"

"Magic that should have been left well alone."

It took them a bit to locate the kitchen- Anders got the impression that no one really knew their way around yet- and they were ambushed by a small child on the way there. He never would have guessed that Thomas Stockard was Nathaniel's nephew. The kitchen, once they got to it, looked rather hastily cleaned and bare. The pans were clearly new and the food out on the counter was probably the sum total of all edibles in the house. Sigrun was standing on a short bench to reach the stovetop, and was brandishing a frying pan, explaining something about it to a thin elf with strange tattoos-

It _couldn't_ be- but no, was he really surprised? If anyone could just turn up and stumble across Hightown's _'Dalish warrior ghost'_ , it was the Commander.

"Sigrun!" Alistair said loudly as he reached the counter and plopped Leandra's basket down on it. "We brought you a present!"

"That's nice, Captain Alistair, thank you-" she started to say, and then shrieked in joy when she turned to greet the Commander.

" _ **ANDERS!"**_

Most people never got to experience getting tackle-hugged by a dwarf, and in Anders's opinion, all of them were missing out. He hugged Sigrun tightly around the shoulders.

"We thought you were _dead_ it's so good to see you Nathaniel got all guilty when we went out to Amaranthine where have you _been_ how have you been oh you haven't been _eating_ have you we should have gotten more food between you and Fenris-"

That must have been the ghost elf, because he made an _'ahem'_ noise.

"Oh, oh right," Sigrun said, and pulled back enough to be able to look at the Commander. "Sir, there's a little problem. Fenris assumed we didn't have any mages with us."

Anders could _feel_ the anger rising, and Justice, and no no no not _here-_

He pushed Sigrun away and backed up, almost out of the room.

" _Commander,"_ he said through his clenched teeth. His vision was going blue on the edges. Fenris was watching him- a split second of alarm, and then narrowed eyes in distrust and anger-

The Commander stepped between them, close enough that he was the only thing Anders could see.

"He was a slave to a Magister," he said. "His problem isn't with you. Breathe. Let it go. Magic is his Templars."

"That's not the same," Anders bit out. That hadn't _helped._

"Isn't it?" the Commander asked. " _Tevinter Magister,_ Anders. Blood mage. Slavery. Think about it."

He did, and it made him want to _kill something._

"This is not working," the was Zevran, close by. "Theron, come away-"

"Anders," the Commander said, not moving. "Anders, you know who you are. _Be that person._ Fenris isn't going unprotected or unavenged. I promised to help him kill the Magister that owned him."

That was- he would _make that_ enough.

It was a tense minute or two, but he managed to force it down.

"Good job," the Commander said quietly, once Anders had unclenched his fists and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. "It's going to be all right, Anders."

"He was cracking blue," he heard Fenris say reproachfully.

"We're going to get it fixed tomorrow," the Commander said. "And if we can't, he asked me to kill him."

A gasp from Sigrun- Lockhard and any other Voshai who were hanging around were probably just looking at him searchingly.

"Will you?" Fenris asked, and Anders held his breath.

"I won't want to," the Commander said after a few long seconds, and Anders let it go. "Fenris, if you're not comfortable with our mages around, I can ask them to stay away. I don't want to order them to- they're just as much Wardens as the rest of us, and just as vital. But this is your house, and you can tell them to leave. That's your right."

"You watch them?" Fenris eventually asked.

"Yes. I trust them, but they're not allowed to do whatever they want just because they have power. If those were the sort of people they were, I wouldn't have them as my Wardens."

That didn't make Anders feel like a very good Warden, but, well, he'd already deserted and taken stolen property with him, it wasn't like that was _news._ He'd have to remember to get those maps back from Varric so he could return them.

"They can stay," Fenris said. "Tell me if you are going to bring more. And I don't- I will not be socializing with them."

"That's perfectly fine," the Commander said. "Thank you, Fenris. I'm sorry I didn't consider that before, I should have."

Anders opened his eyes and caught a flash of Fenris's pure confusion and surprise before the elf shoved it down. Classic Commander right there- throw them with kindness and sincerity and good manners. It worked every time.

"Sigrun?" the Commander asked. "How long until dinner? I have a change of plans to announce."


	7. Chapter 7

Marian hadn't gone back to the estate for dinner, or even to sleep, because once she and Merrill and Aveline and Varric and Isabela had gotten out into the market to see what truth they could scrounge up from the rumors about this Legionnaire and the Tevinter Magisters, they were lambasted by a whole new and foreboding mix of news and rumors.

The Hero of Ferelden was in Kirkwall, come to save the refugees. Mistress Del's famously mysterious missing brother was a Warden with noble blood, money, and influence. Up from the docks, sailors' news Isabela had gotten from the porters who hung around the market, that in Val Royeaux Divine Beatrix III had died and named a quietly disgraced Sister exiled to the Orlesian-Fereldan border as her heir. From Darktown, on the running feet of one of Varric's dedicated urchin-watchers on the clinic, the report that Wardens had come to see Anders, and made him break down crying right before sending everyone off, and now he was gone.

The first two were obviously talked-up rumors about the Wardens they _knew_ were already in the city, it wasn't like they could do anything about electing a new Divine, and Anders was always a priority. They'd all charged down to the clinic to find the doors shut and locked again- but not crossbarred- so they broke in. It was empty. The supplies had been neatly packed up and locked away, but Anders's clothes and staff and few personal belongings were gone, vanished along with him.

So then it was hours of Darktown in the fading light, trying to find anyone who'd seen where he'd gone, but no one knew. A number of people had seen the Wardens arrive- three elves, two humans, and a mabari, all with Mistress Del.

"I- it _can't_ be," Marian said over drinks in Varric's rooms, after it had gotten to dark and dangerous for anyone but criminals, guards, and themselves to be out. "Mistress Del- she _knows_ how much we need him! She _can't_ let them take him! _We_ can't let them take him! We have to get him back!"

"He deserted, Hawke," Aveline reminded her. "They are… allowed to take him back, for a court martial at the very least. We were both in the army at Ostagar, I _know_ you know that."

"Carver and I weren't there by _choice,_ " Marian said savagely. "We were press-ganged! If we'd refused to volunteer the soldiers would have come hunting around, or the Templars would, and then we would have lost Bethany!"

Not that that hadn't happened anyway- and by Bethany's own choice, too. Sometimes, when Marian thought about her sister, it stung bitterly.

"You were _there_ when we went to get those maps from him, Aveline! You _remember_ what he said about the Wardens! How they treated him! We've kept him from the Templars who are _'supposed'_ to have the power to drag him off somewhere he hates- why should Grey Wardens be any different!"

"Hawke, you're drunk," Varric said. "You only get hysterical like this when you've had too much. Slow down a bit."

" _I am not hysterical!"_

"You're seriously talking about fighting Wardens. You're not thinking straight."

"I've fought lots of people!" Marian reminded him. "Lots and lots of people!"

"And _they_ fight darkspawn for a living."

"We've fought darkspawn too! And they weren't that tough!"

Her drink was suddenly gone, and she couldn't figure out who had taken it.

"Have you forgotten the road from Lothering?" Aveline asked, her words carrying a slight edge.

"That," Marian said. "That. Was different. That was a Blight."

"And they're _meant_ to fight the Blights and in the Deep Roads, Hawke," Varric said. "Not the nice little quiet tunnels Blondie helped us find. The nasty ones. The nests. The _Deep_ Roads, where no one has walked in centuries. Do you know how Wardens _die,_ Hawke? It's not old age. They go to the Roads entrance in Orzammar with nothing but their weapons and armor and a few day's supplies. They walk out to the Legion's lines, and then they _keep going._ They take their last Long Walk, and don't stop until the darkspawn kill them. And then the Legion moves their line up a little more- a few miles down one tunnel, occupying a new building on the edge of a thaig no one's lived in since the Blights began, whatever they can grab before the darkspawn move back in. I hear tell that the cleared parts of the Roads are littered with carvings on the walls into the Stone- names, where they're known, but most often just _'Warden'_. Thousands upon thousands of times over. Grey Wardens aren't _like_ the rest of us."

"I met some Wardens once," Isabela said. "In Denerim, a few weeks before the Blight ended. They mostly just seemed tired and underfed. And distinctly virginal."

"You're not helping, Rivaini."

"The only Warden I ever saw was a hard man," Merrill said quietly. He took- he said it was the only way, that there was nothing left. For either of them. He told me my brothers were dead."

It wasn't exactly a secret amongst the group that Merrill's clan had been touched by the Blight, but this was the first she'd said about _family._

"You never said it was your brothers, Daisy," Varric said after a moment. Marian searched for her hand under the table, holding it- lost siblings weren't something she'd thought they had in common.

"They were," Merrill said. "We didn't share any parents. The Dalish, when someone needs a new Keeper or a new First, and a clan doesn't have any mages born, they ask the others to send someone. There's a meeting of Keepers every ten years where it all gets sorted, so long as losing a First or a Keepr didn't make an emergency. You fix those right away. The Keepers bring some of their clan along with them, however many they need to watch the other mages. They don't- it doesn't matter how old they are, see. They need people to come watch the children and the little babies."

"Babies?" Aveline asked. "They take their own people's _babies?_ "

"But you can't tell that young!" Marian protested, remembering the things she'd learned from her father and sister.

"Yes you can," Merrill said. "We know how. The Keeper checks every birth, just in case. And no one _makes_ people leave their children. If they're fifteen, sixteen, then maybe they go alone. Even thirteen sometimes. But the families switch clans too. It binds the Dalish together."

"How old were you?" Isabela asked, and Merrill was silent for a moment.

"I was five," she said. "And my parents didn't come with me. Alerion was the clan I was born into, and there were two other mage children born before me. Alerion is… blessed, with magical blood. Few other clans can claim so many births as they do. If all families left with their children, eventually there would be no Alerion. So my parents stayed. It was necessary."

"That doesn't mean it's good," Marian told her.

"It is how it is," Merrill said. "There was a woman, Ashalle, who was guardian for the orphaned children of Sabrae. Marethari was supposed to be like my new mother, but- it didn't work. I lived with Ashalle and the ones she watched. Two boys. Tamlen was a little older than us. His parents were stolen by humans when he was just a baby, when the clan had been in Orlais. Theron's father was Keeper before Marethari, and was the one who brought them to Ferelden. His mother was Second- the one in charge of the hunters' and scouts' business. Keeper Mahariel was killed holding off demons, I don't know why. Hahren Paivel never said. All anyone _ever_ said was that Second Saeris jumped into the fight with one of the clan's old swords and went down with him. I think- I think they were trying to protect Theron, and that's why no one ever talked about it."

Merrill wasn't even looking at anyone any longer, just gazing distantly at the blank wall. She must have had too much to drink."

"It would have been _glorious,_ " she said quietly. "It was all planned out. Theron and I would get married, because we might get a mage child from Sabrae for it. I would be Keeper. Our daughter would be First. Theron would be the next Hahren after Paivel, learning all of the stories and lore and everything the clans know about Arlathan. Tamlen would be Second. But now Tamlen's dead and Marethari won't take me back even though I'm doing my _job_ and the Wardens took Theron and he went off and killed an Archdemon-"

Everyone else collectively choked on their drinks.

"Merrill," Marian coughed. _"Merrill."_

" _Ancestors,_ Daisy- don't spring that sort of thing on us out of nowhere!" Varric wheezed.

" _You_ were going to marry _the Hero of Ferelden?_ " Aveline demanded, voice hoarse from swallowing her beer the wrong way.

"He _isn't!_ " Merrill said, surprisingly vehemently, banging her fist on the table. "He _shouldn't_ be! He was never supposed to leave! Neither of them were ever supposed to leave; and now they can't come back! The Taint killed Tamlen and it made that _man_ take Theron away and now he can never really be part of the clan again and _I hate the Grey Wardens!_ "

Her voice rose into a shriek at that last, and then broke into tearful sniffs.

"And now they've taken _Anders,_ " she said miserably. "He's so _hypocritical_ and absolutely impossible and sometimes you can't talk to him at all but he's our friend still and they've _taken_ him."

"We'll get him back, Merrill," Marian promised.

"In the _morning,_ " Aveline insisted. "I'll question the guards and find out where the Wardens are staying."

Varric sighed, and Marian didn't notice.

"Best stay here for the night," he said. "I don't trust any of you with the way you've been drinking. I don't even trust _myself._ "

* * *

Theron had been dead serious about leaving first thing in the morning, and Alistair wasn't exactly pleased by that. He was glad for his friend that they'd finally found Sabrae, but like Zevran had said the evening before, it wasn't like they were _going_ anywhere.

The group heading up Sundermount was him, Theron, Fen, Zevran, Nathaniel, Sigrun, Anders, Mhequi, and, for some unfathomable reason that might make sense once he actually woke _up,_ Fenris.

Nathaniel and Sigrun and Mhequi- sure, they knew Anders. And he and Zevran and Fen were a given when it came to Theron going anywhere. But the weird elf-

He was awake enough by the time they got out of the city and were following Anders up the paths of the mountain to trot to the head of the group and ask Theron about it.

"It's a test of trust," his friend told him, shifting his grip on the sack the remains of the eluvian were in. Theron was in a strange bright-eyed state this morning, something akin to manic energy. Alistair couldn't tell if he was excited or nervous or both. "I told him that I promised to kill Anders if this doesn't work, and Fenris is coming along to see if I keep my word, and don't just tell Anders to run away."

The energy got worse the higher up they got, until Theron was outright agitated, unable to stand still when they stopped for water after an hour or so in. Even Zevran couldn't get him to calm down; and once they started walking again Theron began to range ahead of Anders, up the path and off to the sides, returning only when they were too slow to catch up or to say that he'd found some Dalish trail sign in the hills.

"Stay this time, Commander?" Anders asked some time after the water break. It wasn't quite mid-morning yet, and Alistair judged that they were two-thirds or so up the height of the mountain. On the last path turn with a clear overlook, they'd been able to see all of Kirkwall, in addition to a large quarry on the shorter mountain next to them that Anders had called _'the Bone Pit'_.

Apparently he'd helped kill a dragon there. _Lucky._

"We're almost there," Anders promised, and Alistair saw Theron clutch Zevran's hand.

"I'll take the sack," Alistair offered, and Theron flashed him a quick, grateful smile as he handed it over.

They really had been almost there. They rounded a small mound that formed a bit of a clearing and saw banner-like markers stake out at the next turn in the path ahead. Alistair recognized them as detached aravel sails. It was how the Dalish marked the edges of their temporary camps, and a clear sign of how long Sabrae had originally intended to stay here.

Theron inhaled sharply just in front of him.

"' _Ma'len_ ," Zevran told him, prying his fingers off. " _Amora-_ my Warden. It will be wonderful."

They reached the sails and rounded the bend, Anders still in front. There were two Dalish keeping guard on the path, blocking another turn- Sundermount was such a _bendy_ place- looking surprisingly bored and inattentive. It took them a whole fifteen seconds _at least_ to react to a bunch of armored strangers suddenly appearing.

" _Fenaral!"_ Theron yelled, and rushed towards them. " _Radha! Ame alra_!"

Shock, confusion, delight- the guards managed to pack a lot of emotion into the next couple of seconds, and laughed with joy as Theron pounced on them, even though he was wearing silverite plate and they only leathers, which had to have hurt.

The rest of the clan came running, and the Wardens quietly slipped past the growing reunion. Alistair unshouldered the sack and dropped it in the dirt, catching bits of Elvhen he knew from the happy babble of the clan.

There were no children, he noticed. Only adults. Theron had told some stories about his clan- there had been children when he'd left for the Wardens. They wouldn't be grown yet. What had happened to them?

One of the elves on the outside of the reunion turned slightly, just enough to catch the Wardens in the corner of his eye. His expression went cold and stony, and he turned the rest of the way around to glare at them.

" _Shem'len_!" he accused loudly, and the clan quieted. " _Su an'banal i'ma_!"

Even if he hadn't known common Elvhen insults- and some of the uncommon ones, they were pretty inventive- the tone of it was loud and clear.

' _Void take you'_ wasn't even one of the _fun_ ones.

Alistair looked at him thoughtfully, considering his response.

From somewhere in the group, he heard Theron growl.

"May you have a child who gives you misery," Alistair told the affronted hunter in Elvhen. That was a classic, very insulting, and a good start. "And then may the halla turn their backs to it, and may you lose yourself in the forest in shame and Andruil foul your bowstring, and give your scent to the wolves so that they may laught and bring the story of your failure to Fen'harel who will spread it across the clans and whisper it to your ancestors in _uthenera_ and disturb their rest, so they may wake with embarrassment."

He'd heard that really _great_ Dalish insults were an art form, and could last for minutes, but he wasn't at that level. Most insults shared the same general phrasing, so he hadn't had to worry so much about the grammar or length- only string insults he already knew together, replacing the words he didn't want to use.

Still, that tiny insult was _more_ than enough from a human. The hunter was gaping at him in astonishment, and the clan was dead silent.

"I was an honored guest of Clan Vhadan'ena in Hallarenis'haminathe for a winter, asshole."

"And I a city-born son of a woman of Revasina," Zevran said in his much better accent, words as fluid as if he'd been speaking Trade or Fereldan or his own Antivan and he hadn't known Zevran's mother was Dalish and _oh- 'Warden Rivasina!'_

" _Ele_ ," Nathaniel fumbled. It sounded like he was repeating something he didn't actually understand. "Oh sod- _Ele Dirtha'var'en'vhenesan falonen_. _Lethal'lenaan Lethal'an'velannare_."

Alistair had understood about half of that. The grammatical suffixes were messing him up, but that had been something about claiming clan-kinship to Velanna in particularly and the Dalish in general.

" _Ea ara'lethal'lenaan_ ," Theron told Sabrae, loudly enough for everyone to hear. " _Esh'alare_."

 _Apparently_ Theron was willing to risk declaring them all family to his clans' metaphorical face. Alistair would have appreciated a little warning.

"Satheraan Nehna Revasina _ise ara'sal'shiral_."

Satheraan- wait, Zevran had a Dalish name, too? And _ara'sal'shiral_ \- _'ma'sal'shiral_ \- that was a pretty strong choice of words. Alistair didn't know how Dalish got engaged, but by Andraste if calling someone _that_ in front of your whole clan wasn't the next best thing-

Sabrae still wasn't making a sound.

"Well," that was a woman's voice, textured with age and speaking Trade for the ones who obviously didn't know any Elvhen. "Quite a homecoming, _da'len_. I had never thought you to become one for dramatics."

"I haven't really, Keeper," Theron replied. "It's just that Alistair is unable to pass up an opportunity to open his mouth."

"It's a talent!" Alistair called, trying to lighten the mood.

It worked, or the Keeper tacitly accepting their presence worked. Introductions were made all around, and Theron was hard-pressed to tell the story of _everything_ that had happened to him since he'd been gone.

"I will, I will," he promised his clan. "And I want the same from you! But I have to speak to the Keeper about something."

Keeper Marethari took them behind her aravel, away from the eyes and ears of the rest of the clan.

"Is this about Merrill, _da'len_?"

"Not… particularly," Theron told her. "But I found the eluvian she was trying to restore."

He nodded to the sack, and the Keeper's expression lightened by the tiniest of fractions.

"I don't know how to dispose of it. Could you-"

"I will, Theron, gladly. Now why do you _really_ need to speak with me?"

"I want to know if you can do anything to help Anders," Theron told her, and explained the situation.

The Keeper didn't look very happy about it to Alistair- she got all sad and grave, and he wondered if she was how Theron had learned that particular guilt-inducing set of expressions.

"You are one of Hawke's friends," she said to Anders. "I remember you. I would not have let Merrill go if I knew about you."

"I haven't encouraged her," Anders said. "But she won't listen to me when I tell her it's not worth it."

"Hm," was her only response to that. "This is no small thing you ask for, Theron. You have no magic, and even then, to send you into the Beyond-"

"You did it to us," Anders spoke up. "For Feynriel."

"For the clan," Marethari disagreed. "He was our best chance for a new First."

"Keeper," Theron said. "It will not be my first time."

"You-"

"Have been ensnared by a great sloth demon, and escaped its kingdom," he told her. "Have been thrown into the Beyond by an enemy and bargained my way out. Have become ensnared in layers of half-places, almost-theres, by the blood magic of Ancient Tevinter. Have fought more demons in this plane and the other than I have ever cared to count."

He spread his arms, a silent indication of his presence.

"And yet," Theron concluded.

Marethari looked at him for a few long moments, and then closed her eyes.

"You have changed," she said. "And it not simply the darkspawn or your sword and shield. You have settled."

Alistair snorted, very quietly. He couldn't help it. There had been nothing _'settled'_ about the months spent chasing him, or the way he kept pushing to get the arling and the Wardens new, better things.

"Before you left, you would not have challenged me so. You were always a kind soul, Theron, and it gladdens me to see it has been tempered with resolve and assurance, and not broken by strife. You would be a great Hahren."

"I will never live that long, Keeper," Theron said, and Alistair couldn't tell if there was regret in those words or not.

"A loss to us," she sighed, and reached out to touch his face, trace his _vallas'lin_. Her eyes were very sad. "One of Falon'din's, indeed. In fortune, death."

Theron reached up and grabbed her wrist when she tried to pull away.

"Hallarenis'haminathe," he said. "Is the third city of the _El'vhenan_ , _banal'halam_ of Halam'shiral and Arlathan. I saved Ferelden from the Blight and gave it's queen her throne, and in return she gave the fortress of Ostagar and the lands attendant to it. The clans have come, and more are coming. The valley below the fortress is full of halla as countless as the stars, and there they stay in their rest- Hallarenis'haminathe. The children of the Dales have walls of stone, and the Lights of Arlathan crown the Tower of Ishal."

" _Oh,"_ Marethari said. "Oh, Creators bless us- the _Lights!_ "

"I found them in Cad'halash," Theron told her. "And I found Cad'halash from the knowledge the human mages keep in their Circles. The First Enchanter of one owe me his life, the Knight-Commander of the Templars in the same holds me in some respect, and I am friends with a woman whose voice carries throughout all Circles. I have asked for her help in finding what the humans know of Arlathan, and what relics they keep hidden away. We may never get them, but we will know what and where they are; and already the Keepers and Hahren in Hallarenis'haminathe are arguing over the knowledge sent from the Circles."

Marethari laughed weakly, wetly, and in that moment Alistair wished that he really _understood_ the significance of everything Theron had just told her. He knew in an intellectual way that their history was what the Dalish lived for, and the feeling of learning all this had to be something akin to what he'd felt actually seeing the Urn of Sacred Ashes, only… _bigger,_ maybe, somehow. The only person who had devoted their life to searching for the Urn had been Brother Genitivi, but the Dalish had been doing the same for their whole culture almost as long as the Chantry itself had _existed._

"It seems we were both wrong," the Keeper said, tears shining in her eyes, and Theron let go of her wrist. "You have already lived to be a great Hahren."

Theron ducked his head, embarrassed- Alistair couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his friend so obviously trying to hide behind his hair. Usually he just ended up smiling vacantly in the hope that a veneer of continued politeness would get him out of the situation.

"The last time I talked to Hahren Paivel he scolded me for not remembering the proper wording of the stories."

"Well!" Marethari exclaimed. "I would say he has nothing more to complain about, but it _is_ Paivel."

"Yes," Theron agreed, emerging from his hair with a little fond smile. "Yes he is."

Marethari smiled back, and some weight that Alistair hadn't noticed in the conversation lifted.

"You," she told Anders, pointing to him with the butt of her staff. "You must be asleep if we are to do this. And I only have the control and power to safely send four into the Beyond after you and your demon, so choose wisely."

"Commander Mahariel," he said immediately. "Nathaniel and Sigrun. Um-"

There were four of them left- Alistair, Zevran, Mhequi, and Fenris.

"Mhequi," Anders decided. "Justice- Vengeance- he knew the Voshai. You helped him."

Zevran's face was too set, and Alistair took a steadying breath. The group Anders had chosen made sense, and he himself would likely be of more use _here_ with his Templar training if this turned into an Abomination incident, but that didn't mean he was happy about Theron wandering off into the Fade after a demon without reliable supervision. There was such a thing as taking politeness too far, and when demons stopped to talk Theron had a bad tendency to try to _reason_ with them instead of immediately attacking. It had gotten at least a few people they'd been trying to save from said demons killed before.

"A sleeping draught for you then," Marethari said, and went to fetch one.

As soon as she was out of sight, Zevran's hand shot out and clamped onto Theron's arm.

"' _Ma'len-!"_

"I'm coming back," he promised. "It will be fine."

"I can't protect you-"

The pet names could get intense and heartfelt and awkward to witness, but this sort of emotional vulnerability was so many times worse. It was probably a sign of trust that Zevran would say things like this in front of them- but still, Alistair looked away and tried to focus on a rock sticking out of the hillside, but in the end was still unable to ignore them.

"Yes you can," Theron said. "If it does go wrong, kill Anders. Kill whoever you have to. Keep the clan safe."

"That isn't _you!_ "

" _Banal'halam_ ," Theron reminded him. _Everything ends, but there are always traces._

A silence- a kiss, an unspoken _'I love you'_.

Marethari returned with the draught. Anders slipped into unconsciousness. The others were sent into the Fade, and Alistair kept a hand on Zevran's shoulder the whole process of getting them there, giving him something to hold on to.

* * *

They emerged from the Hanged Man suffering from various stages and intensities of hangover but even more determined in spite of it. They were headed to Hightown for Aveline- _not_ hungover, unfair!- to question her guard about the Grey Wardens, and eventually discovered that they were staying as guests of Lord Harimann, past the Chantry.

They took a quick stop at the Amell-Hawke-Marian's estate to get some food and maybe some new clothes- because _everyone_ ended up leaving things here- which severely complicated the situation.

"He was here," Marian repeated. "He came up his escape route. With the _Hero of Ferelden_ and Mistress Del, who is the youngest child of _Rendon Howe._ "

"The Wardens are coming back to see you tomorrow to ask about your Deep Roads expedition," her mother informed her. "You should make sure Aveline and Varric are here too."

"Well I'm going to go see them _right now_ and-"

"Marian," her mother interrupted. "He was happy. Content. _Peaceful,_ even. Don't just go barging in and ruin that for him."

"' _Peaceful'_ like Bethany was when she turned herself in to the Templars?" Marian asked, not caring about her bitterness in that moment.

Leandra Amell crossed her arms and frowned at her daughter.

"No," she said. "Like a grieving man come to a Chantry, looking at the sacred flame and knowing that Andraste has welcomed his family to Her."

"That's still not _good!_ "

"Are you so sure, Marian?" her mother countered. "Even if they are taking him in for desertion and that problem he's got hitched to his soul- which was _not_ the impression I got- he went willingly. That's where he wanted to be and who he wanted to be with, and he deserves the dignity of his choices."

"Not if they're going to get him _killed!_ " Marian snapped, and turned on her heel.

It took effort to keep from simply charging across Hightown to get to Lord Harimann's, and she let out some of her anger and frustration on his door. A servant answered, nervous from the intensity of her pounding, and flinched back slightly from the sight of her.

"The Wardens!" she demanded. "I'm here to see their Commander-"

"They're not _here,_ messere," the woman said. "They left last night-"

Maker forsake them all! They'd grabbed Anders and lied to her mother, _ran,_ gone to hole up in Amaranthine and even if the left now they wouldn't catch up in time!

"Isabela. What ships are in harbor-"

"Oh, meserre, no," the servant interrupted. "They didn't leave Kirkwall. They just moved down the square."

She pointed at an estate a few doors down- one of the abandoned ones that was falling into disrepair, except that the windows had been unboarded and cleaned and there was a neat stack of broken-down crates outside the door, ready to be carted away or claimed for free as firewood; and signs of where someone had swept a pile of dirt and dust and dry leavings into a bucket so it could be dumped into the square's garden.

"Right," Marian said, refusing to feel foolish. "Goodbye."

"Hawke," Aveline said warningly as they headed towards the other building. "We're not breaking and entering."

"We did it last night."

"It's different when someone might be in danger."

"There's someone in danger _here,_ " Marian said. "And it's not going to be Anders!"

" _Hawke-"_

Marian was already at the door. She kicked it once, hard enough to make it rattle, and then used the handle.

"It's not breaking and entering if the door isn't even-"

She was shoved away from the threshold before she could finish the sentence. Marian skidded back across the square before catching herself some feet away.

The door was still open, but now it was blocked by a half-invisible barrier of pure force, a trick she'd seen Anders manage once or twice. The mage responsible was still standing in the doorway behind it, the gem set into her spiral-ended staff glowing softly.

" _Well?"_ she asked archly.

"We're here to see the Warden-Commander," Marian told her.

"Funny," the mage said, looking supremely bored. It must have been a talent she practiced diligently. People didn't realize how hard it was to look uninterested. "You're _very_ funny. No you're not. If he was going to talk to you, _he_ would have found _you;_ and obviously he hasn't."

"And just what is obvious about _this?_ " Marian demanded.

"A dwarf, a guard, a Dalish, a rogue, and a mercenary try to walk into a house-"

"Wait," Varric said. "I think I've heard this one before."

The mage smiled thinly at him.

"I am Warden Arend," she said. "If you leave your names and the _real_ reason you're here, we'll find you. If it's our sort of business."

Marian was going to answer, but Aveline stomped on her foot.

"Guard-Captain Aveline Vallen," she told the Warden. "And my associates. We're friends of the Warden mage Anders-"

"Oh," Warden Arend said, and some of the cold, practiced disdain melted away. "If you're looking to talk to him, he isn't here."

"Why did you take him!"

Aveline shot her a long-suffering look, and Marian ignored it.

"' _Take him'_?" Warden Arend asked. "Warden-Commander Mahariel _asked_ him to come home. He agreed. If he comes back from Sundermount."

" _If_ he-"

Warden Arend inclined her staff towards Merrill.

"They went to see Clan Sabrae," she said. "I bet _she_ knows how to get there. Good day to you, Guard-Captain."

She disappeared from the doorway, but the barrier stayed up. Marian didn't want to be impressed, but she was anyway. She was pretty sure that this spell required proximity, or at least line-of-sight.

A quick check of the sky showed that it was only just past mid-morning. They could make it to Sabrae's camp just after lunch if they left soon.

* * *

The Fade was much as Theron remembered it, full of watery light and with a penchant towards not fully manifesting details unless you paid attention to one spot for a few seconds.

"Eugh," Nathaniel said, "Is it always so- it's nauseating. Isn't this supposed to be where you dream? I don't dream like this."

"It was basically the same the last time I was here," Sigrun told him. "You mean dreams don't look like this?"

"The usual state of dreaming differs from person to person. Some people experience dreams more as impressions than pictures, or scents and textures. Even vivid dreams often fade upon awakening, leaving behind a vague graps of the plot, as it were, or perhaps a single emotion. This tendency to fade is hypothesized as the origin of its name in Ander, Trade, and Fereldan; and thorugh dissemination and literal translation into Antivan, Rivaini, Orlesian, and modern Tevene. Ancient Tevene directly translated the term in _El'vhen_ , which causes confusion amongst scholars today as so many of them of them search vainly for some indication of the ancient Magisters treated the Fade as simply an extension of this plane, no harder to reach than a distant physical location- _'beyond'_ the desert or the sea, perhaps."

Theron, Nathaniel, and Sigrun stopped and looked at each other.

Cautiously, Nathaniel turned around.

"…Mhequi?"

"Yes?"

"That was- pretty coherent. Complex."

"Yes, and?"

"We've never heard you talk like that before," Sigrun said.

"Well if you hadn't managed to strip out all the _useful_ parts of your language and left them floating free in your sentence structure wherever they damned well pleased to wander, you would. This is the Dreamworld. Language doesn't matter here, only meaning. Careful what you say."

"We need to find Anders," Theron said. "Or Justice. I hope they're around here somewhere."

"Really," Mhequi sighed. " _Really._ This is simply. You don't _think_ about going somewhere in dreams, do you? You just end up there."

"One of the mortal world's many lacking features."

Theron knew that voice. It had been some time, but it was a distinctive one.

Justice was standing just off to his side now, doing a good impression of a decorative suit of armor, down to the longsword in his hands planted tip-first against the ground. He didn't look very demon=like to Theron, still glowing blue and ethereal.

"Hello, Justice."

"Warden-Commander," he replied, inclining his head slightly.

"How have you been?"

"Where's Anders?" Nathaniel asked at almost the same time.

"Here," Justice told them. "Sleeping. Was that not your intent?"

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"You… know why we're here, then," Nathaniel said.

"Anders knows," Justice said. "And I cannot help but know as well."

"So _are_ you a demon?" Theron asked.

Justice regarded him silently for some moments.

"I do not understand," he finally said. "There is injustice in your world, injustice he was personally experienced; and yet now he wishes to leave it unaffected, because we are losing our temper and our patience. It is so _hard_ to change mortal things. They are not simply- _are_ because they are meant to be, or because that is how one wills it to be. Things exist that no one person dictates and they persist because- because- because mortals _think_ they do, yet that is not what makes them, it is the actions taken on the thoughts and the actions can persist long after the thoughts are gone or changed or done in spite of them and- it is too much. It does not follow, and yet it does."

"I'm sure he'll keep fighting Templars no matter what," Nathaniel told him. "He really, _really_ has a grudge."

"Change can happen and yet you cannot see it," Justice continued. "I understand nonoe of it. And if people cannot _see,_ how can they _know?_ "

"People act differently?" Sigrun hazarded. "Things change all the time-"

"And yet I cannot _tell,_ " Justice said. He was getting increasingly agitated. "Things can change and no one will react at all. To know- to _know,_ the change must be certain. Obvious to see. _Physical._ Symbolic, perhaps, to accommodate the strangeness of mortal minds. But something must be created or destroyed-"

"No," Mhequi interrupted. "That's spirit thinking. Things may not end or being in our plane, only change from one thing to the next with no one able to say exactly when it became more like one thing than the other. Only in the Dreamworld must all change be so absolute."

"And yet mortals say it is our realm that is strange and inconstant."

"I'm sorry for the assumptions we made coming here," Theron said. "We only had what Anders told us, and it sounds like you're hurting each other equally as much. Anders can't live with how you think, and you can't live with how he thinks, can you? I think you might both be happier if you left."

"I know."

"Then please leave."

"I cannot," Justice said. "There must be-"

"If you don't leave, I've promised Anders I'll kill him," Theron reminded him. "Is it justice to let that happen to him? Is it justice to deny him his own body and mind? Would it be justice for me to break my promise to him, and let him live, because of what you want?"

The spirit was silent for a long time.

"No," he finally said. "No, it would not be. But I cannot simply stand by, and to act in the mortal world-"

"If you want to protect the mages from the Templars, protect them from the demons here," Mhequi told him. "Viktory told me they throw the Circle mages to the demons once they've learned their basics to see what happens. It's barbaric."

"And there are mages who get cornered," Nathaniel said, remembering Renald. "Some of them get desperate. If you can give them help, instead of letting the demons get to them- think about how differently things could have turned out for Anders's friend."

"Yes," Justice said slowly, mulling it over. "Yes, this is acceptable. This is justice, for those wronged."

"Good," Theron said. "I'm glad we found something. Do you two need help separating?"

"No," Justice said. "Anders."

And Anders was there, suddenly. It took him a moment to register his changed surroundings, but when he did, he backed up hurriedly into the Wardens.

"Anders," Theron said, steadying him with a hand. "He's said he'll leave."

"Uh-huh," Anders said doubtfully.

"It is not difficult," Justice told him. "Take my sword and stab yourself with it."

" _What?_ _ **No!**_ _"_ Anders exploded. " _No,_ absolutely _not!_ I am _not_ going to make myself _Tranquil_ to get rid of you!"

"Here things are what you will them to be," Justice said. "I will my sword not to kill you. You will the sword to destroy in you only that which it is like. It will not touch you."

"Except for the part where it absolutely _is!_ "

"This has to be your choice, Anders," Theron told him.

Anders looked at him, then Justice, then the sword with the same considering distaste.

"Fine," he said eventually, holding his hands out. "Give it to me. Commander- if this makes me Tranquil, kill me anyway. I won't live like that."


	8. Chapter 8

It had been- Fenris didn't actually know how long it had been since he'd been out of Kirkwall. He'd been hiding for years, at least; killing the Tevene slavecatchers Danarius kept sending, and waiting for the man himself to show his face.

Lately, he'd started to think that Danarius was toying with him, trying to _test_ him, by seeing how long he could hold out against said slavecatchers, and the variety and quality and number of opponents he could face. The large group he'd tried and failed to subcontract out had been the most difficult, and the one that had made him really suspicious. There had just been so many of them, and he'd had to tease them out in small groups and ambush them from alleys, drawing on all the things he'd seen the Fog Warriors do-

He pushed it out of his mind. There was a new group in Kirkwall, perhaps even more dangerous by their signs. There was at least one mage with them, and they seemed even larger than the one previous.

Fenris knew when he needed help, and the Grey Wardens could provide the dual function of hopefully prickly Danarius's ire at the same time they provided extra protection and blades against the slavehunters. There was safety in numbers, and Wardens had a reputation.

Except somehow the ones he'd fallen in with were mage-lovers, to the point that they were willing to go into the Fade- the _Fade!_ \- and fight a demon to save one who'd made his choices and should have had to live with them.

It was simultaneously disgusting and unsettling.

Disgusting; because how _could_ they not see what mages were like, what magic was like, and spend their care and concern where it didn't matter? It was well-known in Tevinter that the only way to learn blood magic outside of the Imperium was from demons; and that foreign mages did so most often under the pressure of persecution and because they were _weak,_ timid and scared of themselves enough that they would give up control for the illusion of safety, whereas _true_ mages would never had stood the Templars' swords and used the blood of their sworn enemies to be free, to rule- this mage had made a contract with a demon, trading not being forced back to the Fade for the power to escape the Templars. The fear and the desire to be _'free'_ of the creature, could easily be faked, and even the Wardens' own decision to help him could be the result of blood magic. It had been said that this mage ran a free hospital, was a healer- but healers made the worst blood mages, with so much death and suffering at their fingertips and all of it _brought_ to them. How many victims had this mage already made out of his patients, and lied about doing so?

Unsettling; because even as he thought these things he knew that they _did_ know how dangerous this mage, and how dangerous and abhorrent blood magic, was. Arl-Commander Mahariel and his assassin had jumped on the chance to kill a Magister, and the others had seemed in general, if not enthusiastic, agreement. Arl-Commander Mahariel had claimed a long history of fighting demons and mages, and by sheer probability many of those mages would have had to been blood mages, for there to have been so many demons.

And he'd promised to kill this one if it didn't work, because- because he was a danger, yes.

But also because they were friends, and the mage had _asked._

Or so they claimed.

He was trying to disbelieve it. He _wanted_ to disbelieve it. It was the only thing that made sense. Mages didn't just give up. They plotted and the killed and they betrayed until they were out of danger, back in power.

This didn't make sense so _someone_ was lying, and he hoped- as much as he'd let himself hope- that it wasn't the Arl-Commander. He'd been… considerate, even as suspicious as _that_ was.

It had been some time since they'd gone into the Fade. Arl-Commander Mahariel's guard dog was lying patiently beside him, and the two Wardens still awake were on edge. For whatever reason, they held themselves personally responsible for Arl-Commander Mahariel's safety.

Well. The elf was clear. They were involved with each other. The man… unsure so far, but with the show he'd made of himself in the tongue of Arlathan, perhaps he was elven-blooded, not human.

Fenris had been examining his face closely, searching for the little signs such a heritage would leave; but was forced to stop after Warden-Captain Alistair grinned at him and made an excuse for a joke about the scrutiny.

So he watched the camp instead.

It was disquietingly similar to the hidden homes of the Fog Warriors in the jungle. There were no children, because children couldn't be risked. The houses- structures- whatever they were exactly were clearly defensibly, their glaring weakness of being made of wood _too_ obvious. There must have been a trick in it somewhere.

But there were the scouts and the hunters and the camp guards; the senior leaders and the weaponsmaker and a few stands bearing score marks from arrowheads and knives- target practice. The camp wasn't in a very defensible place, hemmed in by hills as it was, but it seemed they'd sacrificed the high ground to gain a hiding place, and undoubtedly they knew all the approached over the hills and kept people watching them.

Though they'd been surprised by their own approach.

When they did get company, some hours later and heading into lunch, the guards were not so surprised. They escorted the group into camp suspiciously, and Fenris could image in why. It was _'Serah Hawke'_ s group, the petty noble who liked playing at vigilante. He'd heard the news that she'd taken some sort of Dalish apostate as a lover, and hadn't beliee it- but leading the group was a Dalish woman with a mage's staff, wilting under the hostility of the rest of the clan, with that Hawke looming protectively behind her.

It made him furious, on some deep level, and he couldn't place why. She was a mage, she had power- but she was an elf and elvhen mages in Tevinter were blood thralls to the true Magisters, and-

Ah. A petty noble with no magic of her own, from a magic family. Taking a magical consort, a _concubine-_

 _A bed slave and bodyguard,_ memory hissed at him, and he shoved it away.

-to show her power. It was the sort of behavior that the Magisters sneered at before crushing said petty, magicless nobles and buying up their slaves to make thralls of them.

Hawke and her pet mage- the Dalish were right to want them gone, and he would help them watch until they were.

* * *

Zevran wasn't aware that anyone else had come to camp until Fenris shifted his weight, eyes narrowing in constrained rage and suspicion at something behind them. Reflex and nerves already strung from the hours watching Theron and Anders, hunting for the least sign of something gone wrong, had him on his feet with his knives drawn before he'd really thought about it.

It didn't seem like he'd needed to. A Dalish woman who had to be Theron's Merrill, an angry looking woman with a big sword, a dwarf, a guard-

" _Zevran!"_ Isabela called, her smile as easy and inviting as ever, and some tension went away. He'd always felt comfortable with Isabela, and if he hadn't met Theron- well, no matter now. "Don't tell me you've gone _respectable!_ "

What- oh, the Warden armor.

"Ah, my dear old friend," he said, resheathing his knives and flitting over to her side, falling into the familiar exaggerated courtly bow over her hand as she fluttered her eyelashes at him, playing the innocent maid. "What lies have you been hearing about the Wardens? I assure you there is no group of rogues, criminals, and outcasts more trustworthy, dependable, and responsible in all of Thedas; and none more so of them than those of Ferelden."

He straightened up and gave her a big wink.

"And no one more willing to become a serial liar to protect someone he loves than their Commander," he told her in Antivan, deliberately making his tone mis-match his words.

Isabela laughed and dramatically pretended to be overcome by his _'flirting'_. Language could mask so much.

"Someone he loves?" she asked in Rivaini, letting the sentence go low and sultry.

Zevran shifted closer, as if accepting her _'invitation'_. He could feel everyone's eyes on them, ready for the show.

"More than himself," he confessed in a whisper against her ear. "And I the same. There are many days where I wake up safe and cared for next to him, and I hardly dare believe it."

Isabela drew a step back to look him over, hands on his shoulders and his still on her waist; and after a moment nodded once, decisively.

Then she clapped him on the back and they embraced each other in the close, hard hug they'd been working up to the whole time.

"You got out," Isabela said, low enough that only he could hear. "You _really_ got out. No matter what the Crows do, they'll never get you back. I'm so proud of you, Zev."

That caused a flair of warmth in his chest, and he squeezed her a little tighter to convey his thanks just before they stepped apart, holding hands now.

Oh, but it was surprisingly good to see someone besides Wardens. He had so few friends.

"So," Isabela said, switching back into Trade. "Where's this man of yours? I need to threaten him on behalf of your honor and virtue."

Something in his expression must have gone out of his control- a sudden tightness in his smile perhaps- because Isabela's eyes darkened in concern and her smile faded.

"Zev?"

"He is resolving an issue," he told her, his grip on her fingers tightening. "Of- membership."

Isabela's expression went fierce suddenly, and she dropped back into Rivaini.

"If he's _hurting_ you, Zev, if he's not treating you right; if he does things that make you look like _that-_ "

"Bela, _amica-_ "

"The _Crows_ made you look like that!" she hissed. "I won't let you get stuck in that again! Just because you love someone doesn't mean it's _good!_ "

" _Bela,"_ Zevran said, more firmly this time. "No. No. Theron is a good man, better than I could ever be. He is outside of my protection now, and I-"

There were strangers here.

"-I am _scared,_ Isabela," he told her, using Antivan again. "I am so scared. He trust so easily, and gives entirely too many second chances, and reaches for words when he should for blades. There is every chance that his kindness with kill him before darkspawn ever do, and I cannot stop him. Even if his kindness wasn't why I love him so, I owe my life to it."

Isabela looked him over searchingly for a few moments.

"There's a lot more to this story than what you let me assume in the Pearl, isn't there?"

He nodded mutely, and she reached up to smooth out some worry lines.

"What has he gotten himself into, Zev?"

"The Wardens had a runaway mage we found yesterday-"

"Anders _is_ quite the handful, isn't he?"

"You know him?"

"Zev, sometimes I think half of Kirkwall is invested in keeping the Templars off him. That's why we came up here. Hawke was dead certain your man was doing nefarious things to him."

Anders had mentioned Hawke- she must be the angry woman with the big sword working her way up to a shouting match with Marethari. Fenris was scowling at her like it was only a matter of seconds before he tried to run her through- curious.

"A court martial was mentioned," Isabela continued, pulling his attention back; and he snorted. "What?"

" _Mi amica_ , there is a wonderful irony in that notion," he said. "And I will tell you the story later. For now-"

He hooked his arm through hers.

"-let me prove that we are doing nothing nefarious to our favorite healer, hm?"

Zevran led Isabela back behind Marethari's aravel, where Alistair was still sitting watch.

"Anders has," he started to explain. "A particular problem-"

"Oh, we know _all_ about that," Isabela said. "The first time I met him he was going blue and glowy at Templars and proving every point they make about the deadliness of Abominations. Which isn't to say that _we_ didn't help contribute to the body count…"

"The Keeper sent them into the Fade to get between Anders and his demon," Zevran told her, and that was all the explanation she needed.

"Is he strong-willed?" she asked. "I've heard that's enough."

Zevran thought about it, Politeness and kindness weren't the traits that usually got associated with _'strong-willed'_ , but Theron had come out of many a situation having relied mostly on his own sort of quiet determination. An Archdemon to fight, a Landsmeet to convince, a country to travel openly across with a royal bounty on his head-

"Yes, he is."

* * *

Alistair had one ear on the loud developing argument Marethari was having with some visitor, the other on Zevran and his woman friend, and both eyes on Anders; so he missed Theron waking up until he shifted into his field of view, bending over the still-unconscious mage.

"Anders," he said, shaking him a little. "Anders."

The man stirred, and Alistair took a steadying breath, just in case he'd have to do something.

Eyes opened. Theron put one hand on Anders's heart, the other on his forehead.

"How do you feel?"

Anders blinked muzzily at him a few times.

"Like someone scraped all my insides with a dull knife," he decided. "Other than that? Great."

He closed his eyes again.

"But I'm just going to lie here for a bit, if it's all the same to you."

Out of Alistair's line of sight, Nathaniel sighed heavily in relief.

"The clan's got more visitors, Theron," Alistair said. "They've come for _him._ "

"Anders, lovely," Zevran's friend said, stepping forward to poke the mage with her foot, and _wait a second_ it was that _pirate-_ "Get up and put on an appearance before Hawke decides to be drastic."

"Commander'll stop her," Anders mumbled.

"Varric and Aveline walked up a mountain in the middle of the day for you."

Anders groaned and rolled over.

" _Fine,"_ he said. "Somebody help-"

Just like that, Nathaniel was at his side, supporting him as he stood, and then again after he almost fell over trying to walk unassisted.

The pirate watched them go in amusement, and Alistair wondered what sort of events could have brought her across their paths again. She caught him looking, and winked.

" _I_ remember you."

"Small world, huh," he asked, crossing his arms in defense. The memories of the last time he'd seen her were… pretty vivid still.

"Isabela," Zevran said, relaxed once more. His tension had fled at Theron's first smile to him, as Anders had left. "This is Theron. Theron- Captain Isabela, Pirate Queen of the _Siren's Call_."

Alistair was still looking at her, and so saw the exact moment when her expression slipped, and the genuine smile turned into something uneasy.

"Not… anymore, Zev," she said. "She sunk. A couple years ago. I've been beached ever since."

" _You?"_ Zevran asked in honest surprise. " _Years_ in port?"

"I've got my own problems," she said, and then started blatantly ignoring the topic with defensive cheer. Alistair wondered if she'd learned it from Zevran, or he from her, or if they'd become friends because they shared coping mechanisms. "You say _you're_ surprised by me staying in port- but look at you! A taken man!"

"He stole my heart," Zevran informed her with a grin, and _great,_ this was going to be one of those embarrassingly honest emotional things. "And I find myself completely unwilling to steal it back."

"By chance did he lock it up somewhere?" Isabela asked. Her answering grin was distinctly cheeky. "The great assassin, foiled by a simple lock once more!"

"Ah ah ah!" Zevran protested. "I have learned! I can do it now!"

"I'll believe that when you can beat me."

"A pirate, you said?" Theron asked. "And in need of a ship?"

"Why, your arlship!" Isabela said in mock scandalization, complete with a theatrical gasp. "How very immoral of you, to promote crime!"

"There's such a thing as legal piracy," Theron told her. "Amaranthine has a navy. I don't know anything about boats and ships, but people who do assure me that it's in terrible condition and that's why we had such a smuggling problem. We still do, really, but they're much less blatant about it. It's the coastal raiders who are getting bold, and a privateer is just the sort of person who would know how to catch them, wouldn't they?"

" _Maker,"_ Alistair groaned. " _Theron._ Will you _stop_ trying to recruit every new person we meet! You _already_ picked up Fenris! One lost and lonely soul per adventure is _more_ than enough!"

"But she could be very helpful."

"I like him," Isabela told Zevran. "He's a keeper. If you ever-"

" _Amica,_ no. He is not that sort of person."

She sighed.

"Shame. He's _gorgeous_ when you catch him right- the way he _smiled_ at you-"

"Oh, I _know._ "

Sometimes, Alistair really had no idea how Theron had put up with Zevran long enough to fall in love.

* * *

Seeing Anders stagger up supported like a barely-conscious drunk had _not_ made Marian any better disposed towards the Wardens. He was alive, that was great; but it was also a minimum standard that shouldn't be rewarded because Anders _wasn't in the wrong._

" _ **Hawke!"**_ Anders eventually bellowed at her. The Dalish had gone back to their business, disrupting the daily flow of life only for the occasional glare thrown at her and Merrill. "Shut up and _listen!_ I _asked him_ to kill me!"

"And you have didn't to!" she shot back. "You would have gotten yourself under control again, we would have found something-"

"You weren't _living_ this, Hawke! It never would have happened! I was losing myself and Justice was losing himself and eventually we would have done something we really _couldn't_ walk away from!"

"It's good to hear you're being reasonable about this now," Aveline said, and the only reason Hawke didn't whirl on her friend was because Merrill held her back.

"Marian," she said quietly, uncharacteristically cowed. "The clan is setting up a feast. We should leave."

"I'm not leaving until we've got Anders!"

"The Commander asked me-"

"You've got people _here_ who count on you, Anders! You've got the clinic and your Underground! _Sod_ the Grey Wardens; there's hundreds of them and it isn't even a Blight! There's only one-"

He'd been leaning heavily on his friend, but now his eyes flared hot and steel-hard and for a moment Marian thought that everyone had been wrong, and Vengeance was about to reprise Ser Alrik.

Anders straightened. It was easy to tell that he didn't have the strength to hold it for any length of time, but right this second it didn't matter. He looked like he was one wrong move from really putting his money where his mouth was on the whole _'why mages are feared'_ business, and completely of his own free will.

"Do not, _Marian Hawke,_ " he said, low and dangerous. "Say that about my _family._ They asked me to come home, and I've decided I'm done running. I've learned _that_ much from Kirkwall."

"' _Your family'_?" Marian challenged. "What do _you_ know about _family,_ Anders! Not enough to stick with them, not enough to care to stay- and that _shit_ about being done running! You're just looking for an excuse to run away from _here,_ to get away from your guilty conscious! You'll _never_ stop running, Anders! Not in your _life!_ "

" _Marian,"_ Merrill said more urgently. Anders was glaring at her in outright fury, unsoftened by the fact that he'd had to go back to leaning on his human crutch. "I really do think-"

"There is a time and a place for running away," someone said, and Marian looked past Anders to find a new Warden- Dalish, who had a naturally melancholy face incongruously paired with that smooth voice.

The Hero of Ferelden. Merrill's would-have-been husband.

"The Dalish know it well," he continued. "And I will not fault Anders for taking his chance. I could for his methods, but it was treason and betrayal that drove him away, and if they had still lived when I returned I would have executed them anyway. Because he _is_ family. Sometimes-"

He was looking at Merrill, Marian realized.

"-the best way to be family, the only _good_ way, is to leave."

"He's _our_ friend," Marian insisted, and stepped between him and her love.

"Ours as well," he said. "And a Warden, ties that should be as strong as any of family."

She was prickled with irritation that he didn't seem affected by her belligerence at all. There was a good reason she'd learned how to rile people up with comments and attitude and how best to threaten others.

"He told us he _hated_ the Wardens," Marian told him, trying to get _something_ out of him.

" _Different_ Wardens, Hawke," Anders said.

"Marian, please-"

"Merrill," the Warden-Commander of Ferelden interrupted, and though his tone was still as even as it had been when he'd been addressing her, the mildness was all gone, replaced by sharp edges. " _Ahnsul_."

Marian didn't know Elvhen but Merrill flinched and who _cared_ if he was a Warden and nobility and a war hero she had _people_ to protect-

"Marian," Merrill begged. "No. Go home. I- I have to do this."

"Do _what?_ "

"I have to talk to him. I'll be back before dark. Or in the morning. Please."

Merrill asking had been her biggest weakness since they'd first met; and so Marian kissed her- _pointedly, thoroughly,_ Blight take the Dalish- grabbed Aveline and Varric because Isabela _also_ said she was going to stay, and stormed back to Kirkwall.

* * *

There was a dead-end path blocked by a rockfall just outside Sabrae's camp, close enough to be heard if they shouted but not so close that the whole clan would be privy to their conversation.

Theron led the way and Merrill followed, cataloging every difference in him from the young man she'd watched be taken away five years ago. Five years was unthinkably long of a time not to see one of your clan, and even the smallest change was upsetting and unsettling.

He carried a sword instead of a bow- he'd always favored blades, but hunters and scouts used bows and he'd been relegated to the least-intensive of their jobs since he had been Hahren Paivel's apprentice. His hair was longer, and styled differently. Before it had been just so long as the nape of his neck and the only decoration had been respectable side-braids; now his hair was just past his shoulders, long enough that the ends of it were curling. He'd twisted his bangs and pulled them back in a thin tail in addition to his old braids in no style she'd ever seen before. He looked just a bit bigger in plate armor- wider, taller, stronger- and he moved in it with foreign ease. He strode like a Keeper, not gliding like a hunter, and he didn't feel so quiet any longer. She could just about sense edges in him that hadn't been there before, odd raggedy bits of the Beyond and he had no magic, so why did he feel like that?

They reached the rockfall and Theron turned to face her, gold and ruby shining in his ear as he did so. It was a thick thing, nothing delicate about it, but Merrill had learned enough about human money to know how much that piece of jewelry, even so small as it was, was worth. The earring was human make, too- the Dalish didn't go much in for jewelry, especially piercings. Bead necklaces and amulets were the most common, with the occasional solid bracelet, all of wood or bone or the rare naturally-bored stone.

Theron was very un-Dalish now, from the top of his head to the soles of his boots, and if it wasn't for their own history together Merrill would have turned away and gone back to camp. _She_ had left the clan to find new memories for the Dalish and _she_ had kept her culture while living in the _shem_ city no matter how interesting and exciting it could be and _she_ wore her own armor, _El'vhen_ armor, white mage's armor in the style of Arlathan, recreated from the stories.

He had been going to be Hahren and her husband but then the Dread Wolf had spirited him away and returned him, too late and too different.

But she loved him still, and he was looking at her like Marethari.

"Blood magic is banned by the clans," Theron said, after some long minutes of silent looking. Maybe he'd been cataloging her differences as well. "I know you know that."

"We are nothing without our history, and every bit we learn makes us stronger," she replied. "I know _you_ know that. Our prejudices have to matter less than that."

"Demons," he said.

"I'm not _Anders,_ " Merrill retorted. "I know better than to let one in!"

"I kill blood mages."

"Well if they're hurting people, you should! I kill the bad ones too!"

"Merrill-"

" _No,_ Theron!" she cut him off. "You don't get to be Marethari to me! I lost Tamlen and I lost you and Marethari was going to take us across the _ocean_ and you'd never be able to find your way back and I was First, I couldn't stay like Ashalle did! I _begged_ her to come, not to stay in the Forest where the darkspawn could get her too but she _wouldn't!_ She- she chose you over me and I lost _all_ of my family that day and I _had_ to make something good out of it! So I took the pieces of that Eluvian to learn how they worked so at least it wouldn't have been for _nothing!_ And when the spirit trapped in Sundermount told me how to get rid of the Taint in it I _had_ to do it, Theron! I know blood magic and I haven't used it to hurt anyone!"

"The Taint is a kind of blood magic, Merrill," Theron said. "You didn't cleanse it so much as replace one bad thing with another. An Eluvian is a portal, and if the demon was-"

"You _know_ what they are?" she demanded. "How can _you_ know?"

"Tamlen got pulled through one," he said. "And I saw a friend go willingly through another."

That was-

"You've seen _another one?_ "

The chances of that were so wildly unlikely. The Eluvians were _lost,_ and for the same person to find two within five years without even looking- what did it mean?

"Yes," Theron said, and tilted his head slightly, considering something. "You haven't told me why yet, Merrill."

She twisted her staff just enough that the end dug into the gritty soil, the nails of her free hand digging into her palm.

"Yes I did," she told him, tone clipped with defensiveness. Of all the things to forget, how this. Why _this?_ The way he took what he knew about people and _applied_ it, with such an air of thoughtful- or thoughtless- calmness that it slipped by unnoticed.

"Not really," he said. "But they were still pretty well-supported reasons. Why turn to our history, Merrill? The Keeper leads and uses their magic for the health of the clan. No good Keeper does what you have."

Not for the first time, Merrill wondered about Theron's reasoning behind his _vallas'lin_. Falon'din was far from a favored choice, though the god himself was held in good esteem. Most Dalish chose Andruil for the hunt and the wilds or Sylaise for the clan, perhaps Mythal for protection or Ghilan'nain for the halla. Even Elgar'nan and June were more popular. Most Hahren-in-training chose Dirthamen for his knowledge and hidden secrets, and so did those Keepers who chose not to dedicate themselves to Sylaise or Mythal.

To dedicate yourself to death was… not quite Dalish. The Dalish were meant to _live,_ to preserve, and to enter adulthood with an ever-present reminded of the doom that the coming of humans had inflicted on the _El'vhen_ was just-

' _Unseemly'_ wasn't really strong enough. _'Distasteful'_ had the wrong connotations.

Not that it had stopped _her_ from choosing Falon'din, of course. But she had done the proper thing, and asked Marethari for her _vallas'lin_ to be of _'Falon'din, Lord of Fortune'_ at the beginning of her ritual, so that there could be no confusion.

Theron had sat, calm and unconcerned and suppressing a smile that only someone who knew him as well as she and Tamlen had would have been able to notice, and told Marethari that he was taking _'Falon'din, Friend of the Dead'_.

Dirthamen would have suited Theron perfectly, but one did not ask about the meaning behind another's _vallas'lin._ It was between them, their god, and any who became close enough to merit that kind of intimacy. Merrill had shared hers with her brothers- her own unconventional choice for Falon'din in his secondary aspect of bringing fortune, in the hopes that she would bring it to Sabrae and because of the happiness their own future together as the leaders of Clan Sabrae was sure to hold. Tamlen and Theron hadn't done the same in return, but at the time she'd thought the choices were obvious. Tamlen Mythal, because he was going to be Second and in charge of protecting the clan. Theron Falon'din, for their dead ancestors and their knowledge he was meant to hold in trust.

And maybe, just maybe, a secret hope she'd never say aloud, was because that was who _she_ had chosen. Tamlen had been the first to go through the ritual, she the second. Theron could have done it at the same time as her, but he'd told Marethari and Hahren Paivel that he needed more time to think. He'd taken three months for it, disappearing into the forest for hours or days at a time for solitude and silence.

But ever since the Warden had come, she'd had doubts. What had Theron realized about himself during that time alone? Being dragged off to the Grey Wardens, torn from the clan, thrown into a Blight, the hundred little deaths he had to have avoided to get through it all- it seemed too coincidental.

In her more hysterical moments, Merrill had entertained the thought that perhaps he'd managed a dream walk, like the stories said the ancient Hahrens had been able to, and received a message from the gods, a portent of his fate. But coincidences were coincidences, and _vallas'lin_ that fit so well were a mark of good fortune.

Still, Dirthamen- Theron was too good out rooting out secrets, once he'd put his mind to it.

And this was her sole remaining brother. She owed him the deeper truth.

"Our lost knowledge because you were supposed to be Hahren," Merrill told him. "Blood magic because I needed to be stronger to keep the clan safe, with Tamlen gone."

Theron's expression softened with sadness.

" _Asa'ma'lin_ ," he said. "No. No, you didn't have to do that. Those weren't your places to fill."

"Someone had to!" Merrill told him. "We had no one else who could step in!"

The words hung in the air between them for a moment, and then-

"Merrill, where are the children of Sabrae?"

The words she'd been going to say stuck in her throat. She'd been hoping he wouldn't ask- wouldn't notice.

"They disappeared," she told him. "Some before we came here, in the Brecilian Forest. Maybe to darkspawn, maybe they just got lost as we moved. But the Blight was coming, and Marethari made us keep going. We had to come to Sundermount, she said. The ones who were still left just- we woke up one morning, all at once, and it was past dawn already. The children were gone, and the halla. There were so signs in camp but the enclosure fence had been broken and there was blood in the dirt. We don't know what happened, but the things I've seen with Marian- I think it was slavers with a mage, maybe a couple of them, who kept the camp asleep and stole the children, poached the halla. I supposed Dalish _adults_ couldn't be so easily kept-"

No. She wouldn't talk about this. _Ele El'vhen'anes banal'halam i din'sal judyir juvaslasir_.

"That was five years ago, right after we arrived," Merrill continued. "Sabrae has had no new births since then. All of the hunters and scouts are suited for and needed where they are- Theron there was _no one_ who was good enough to take Tamlen's place as Second-to-be, no one Hahren Paivel could train as his successor- _I had to!_ Sabrae is _dying!_ Someone had to be strong enough to keep it together, to bring it back- and I was First! I was _alone!_ "

The afternoon lay quiet for a while, with no sound but the wind. There were no birds on Sundermount, and Sabrae had hunted the area within two or three day's travel almost clean. Soon, they'd be starving as well as infertile, lacking succession, and unable to leave.

"Leave the blood magic, _asa'ma'lin_ ," Theron finally said. "Walk away from the demon. Cast it down in your dreams. Come back to Ferelden with me. The _El'vhenan_ have founded our third city. Hallarenis'haminathe lies on the northern edge of the Korcari Wilds, built out of what was Ostagar. I would go on behalf of Sabrae to ask for new families and halla so our clan can come home, and if you come with me I can introduce you to the Keepers and Firsts and Hahren already there, learning and studying together. You may not be First again, if Marethari and the clan don't want you back; but you can be the first independent _El'vhen_ mage since the fall of the Dales, growing and using your power for the good of _all_ the clans. I can retrieve the uncorrupted Eluvian for you to study. Just leave this behind you."

She had been warned time and time again of the dangers of temptations from demons, but everyone always forgot to say anything to mages about temptations from mundane sources. This was a big one- the chance to be a part of the Dalish again, the chance to use her magic freely, the chance to have respect and trust again, the chance to be a part of her people's history, the chance to live in a true _city_ of the _El'vhenan_.

But Marian, and her friends.

"Thank you for the news, _isa'ma'lin_ ," Merrill told him. "But Marian will fret all over the city if I'm not back at the house by dark."

She turned and walked away, unsure if she wanted Theron to try to stop her or not.

He didn't.

* * *

He'd translated the word for the celebration the Dalish were throwing to the others as _'feast'_ , but it wasn't really anything like that. They were fed, but that was just good manners- the point of this was that the whole clan was here, and that it was story time. Theron was telling his clan everything that had happened since he'd left with the Wardens, and Zevran was the only one fluent enough in _El'vhen_ to fully follow along, so he was keeping up a running translation for everyone else as he watched Theron speak.

It was plain to see here, relaxed amongst in his first family and speaking in his first language, that he'd been trained as the heir apparent to an oral tradition. There were twists of phrase and little poetic things that Zevran simply couldn't render in Trade, so he confined himself to admiring them as they came and started contemplating a suitably suggestive comment about expert mouths that he could drop sometime when Alistair and Nathaniel were both around to appreciate it.

The planes of Theron's face were highlighted in the firelight, shadows changing as he put the full weight of deliberate hand gestures and changes of expression to the fore. It really was a shame that human political games were played by such different rules- Theron was _very_ convincing like this.

Theron progressed uninterrupted through the journey to Ostagar, the particulars of the day before the battle, fighting for the Tower and being betrayed, meeting Morrigan and Flemeth, Lothering-

He got to Clan Vhadan'ena and the werewolves, and when he revealed Keeper Zathrian's part in the whole affair a collective, threatening hiss went up from Sabrae, followed by some shouts of outrage.

Zevran leaned in so he could hear Theron's explanation of the outcry while Marethari quieted the clan.

"Vhadan'ena were our neighbors in Ferelden, but all the Dalish knew Zathrian and respected him- honored him. This is a shock and a betrayal. Many here have friends or family in Vhadan'ena who were threatened or might have died, and Keeper Marethari was Zathrian's First before Lanaya. He sent her to Sabrae himself when he heard that our old Keeper and First and Second had been killed."

Theron finished with Vhadan'ena and the werewolves, slightly salvaging Zathrian's reputation by emphasizing to his clan how the Keeper had finally let go of his hatred and willing lifted the curse at the cost of his own life. There was a general murmuring of approval at that, and Theron smiled to see it and glanced over at Zevran-

 _Oh,_ he remembered, as Theron picked up the story again, describing the road to Redcliffe and a false plea for help. _I'm next._

He tried to brace himself for Sabrae's reaction to the knowledge that he'd tried to _kill_ Theron- he, whom Theron had just this morning declared his _sal'shiral_. Zevran watched the faces of those Dalish nearest him very closely, trying to use them as a gauge for the attitude of the rest. If they reaction with scorn or derision or distrust Theron would be angry, and it could escalate. He'd have to be ready to calm him down in a quick moment, or maybe move, step away from the fire and fade into the background.

And then he realized just _what_ Theron was saying about his assassination attempt.

"-but enslaved by chains of the mind, his name and his pride taken from him as a motherless child, defenseless against the _shem'len_ , told he was nothing and his own will replaced by those who thought they owned him, until he came to think that he was nothing but a thing. And so he sought death in the only way his enslavers would not suspect, for all had said that the Crows were inescapable. Such is the way that Zevran Arainai came to Ferelden, seeking death; and instead found his freedom and retook the name and pride his mother gave him. Such is the way Satheraan Nehna Revasina lived."

Zevran had stopped translating sentences ago, just listening, trying to really _understand_ what Theron had just said. He knew the Crows had bought him, yes; but he'd never thought of himself as a _slave._ Less than a human, certainly. Worthy of contempt, yes. Unimportant and valueless but for his skills, and even _then_ still disposable- that was just how the Crows worked. But you didn't take a slave and give him the weapons and training needed to turn on his master; therefore, Crow apprentices, even the _compradi_ like him, were not slaves.

Theron had stopped talking, noticing Zevran's silence, and took his hand. Sabrae had been hanging onto every word ever since he'd started to talk in terms of slavery, and now the moment created by his last sentence was stretching, stretching; and all Zevran could think was _'chains of the mind'_ because wasn't that exactly right? When had he _ever_ thought about turning on the Crow Masters? They'd tricked him into killing Rinna, and he hadn't thought to take revenge on those who had orchestrated it all. He hadn't died in his assassination attempt, and he didn't fight against the idea that the Crows would find him and kill him. It had taken until after Taliesin was dead and he was standing there looking at his body on the ground and Theron had refused to make a decision for him and Zevran had chosen to stay because for the first time he thought maybe he could be turly safe, here with this man who'd let him go and wish him well but gladly take him back-

That was the first he'd thought about turning on the Crow Masters, and even then it had been about keeping himself and Theron safe, and not about vengeance for his life.

" _Ele El'vhen'anes banal'halam i dinsal judyir juvaslasir_ ," someone said, and the clan picked it up, repeating it approvingly, a little louder and with more voices every time until all of Sabrae had joined in.

Theron slipped his fingers from Zevran's and held both his hands up.

" _Ele Dirtha'var'enes!"_ he called over everyone else, and they repeated it back triumphantly before settling down and letting him continue.

Isabela's elbow dug into his side as Theron started telling his clan about the undead in Redcliffe.

"What was that?" she whispered. "It sounded like a war cry."

An apt comparison, now that he thought about it.

"It was, of a sort," Zevran whispered back. "It is part of the Oath of the Dales. _Ele Dirtha'var'enes- amelanis laimem'eolasan i virelanis u'vires. Ele El'vhen'anes banal'halam i dinsal judyir juvaslasir. 'We are the Dalish- keepers of the lost lore and walkers of the lonely path. We are what remains of the El'vhenan and never again shall we submit'_."


	9. Chapter 9

They'd returned to Kirkwall quite late at night- more like the uncertain time where it couldn't possibly be termed _'morning'_ but the Chantry and Circle timekeepers disagreed- and for the first time in a long time Anders slept deeply, untroubled by stress or duties. It was easy to tell the false dreams from the true ones, and he smiled viciously in the face of a sloth demon who tried to break him with a nightmare about chains and duties and never being free of the Wardens, and pounded it with lightning until it fled, leaving him to wake in peace.

Oh but it felt _good_ to come out of dreaming and be blessedly alone in his own head. He felt like he could stretch again, relax, laze about in bed until midday came because no one could force him _not_ to.

But not all his changes since Amaranthine had bene Justice, and years of healing work were nagging him to get up. Anders stayed in bed another five minutes to prove that he could before getting up, finding himself surprisingly full of energy and cheer- he felt like he had magic to burn for the first time since running to Kirkwall and he wanted to practice all the skills he'd let get rusty and the ones he'd never been good at anyway, lightning and fire and ice and earth, force, even the entropy he found so antithetical.

He wanted to _spar,_ to test Warden stamina against Warden stamina, spell and staff against sword and shield

Unfortunately he couldn't find his clothes.

After another five minutes of searching, he gave up and left his room with his blanket wrapped around him for modesty.

" _Somebody's going to be living with frozen gear if they don't bring my clothes back_ _ **right now!**_ _"_

"Oh, stuff it, Anders!" Nathaniel called back from somewhere down the hallway. "Nobody stole your stuff!"

"Well _I_ don't have them!" Anders yelled at him, and tracked Nathaniel down to the formal dining room the Wardens had cleaned for use, where he was sitting next to Sigrun. Breakfast was mostly ready, and the smell of so much hot cooked food made him tear up unexpectedly. There was Fereldan cheese and egg-potato mash, familiar as easy and relatively cheap from the Vigil and Circle; but also a wheat porridge with diced meat the stirred something deep in memory- a proper Ander breakfast. And _fruit,_ the last of summer and preserves for Kirkwall bread, morning beer and a few pitchers of iced water that had been boiled to purify it, cut vegetables crowded around their bases to keep the food fresh.

It was enough food for thirty people, not thirteen and a mabari, but Anders promptly forgot all about his clothes at the prospect of a real, _filling_ meal. The food his patients could pay him in was meager, and enough to keep him from actually starving. The coin he got from working with Hawke and what Leandra would force him to take from the estate let him eat enough not to be too hungry and give something back, but still.

This was breakfast enough for Wardens, and it had been _too long._

He grabbed some bread, stuffed some cheese and preserves in it, and shoved it into this mouth.

" _Sweet temptation,"_ he moaned, swallowing his first bite, and quickly devoured the rest. "You both had _better_ appreciate being able to eat like this every day."

"Oh, we do," Sigrun assured him, smiling in amusement. "Alistair has your clothes. Check the foyer."

Anders had no idea why _Alistair_ should have them, but he reluctantly walked away from the food to retrieve at least pants. If he didn't have to hold the blanket closed with one hand, he could have both free to eat, after all.

Alistair was indeed in the foyer, watching Lockhard and Kallian do sword drills against each other.

"Theron thought you'd want to go out today," he said, and threw a bundle of cloth at him. It was heavier and harder than it looked, and Anders almost dropped it. "Sort out your clinic before you left or something, and you should look like a Warden when you do it. This was the best we could do on two night's notice, though."

Anders untangled the clothes. His coat was there, washed and discreetly mended where it was wearing thin, but everything else was completely new. There was a blue shirt the Kirkwall fashion, three-quarters sleeves and two-tiered bottom hem, and heavy dark pants to go with it. The strange weight and hardness were boots, armored ones of decent leather. And wool socks; a new, wide belt; leather gloves with half the fingers uncovered and ribbing on the arms to form a sort of vanbrace-

Suspicion pricked at him, and he checked the back of his coat. Someone had carefully cut the Wardens' griffon out of white cloth and appliquéd it with small, even stitches, embroidering the details in blue thread. His coat didn't hold up to the standards of a uniform at all, but at least now it looked slightly official.

"Did I do all right?" Alistair asked. "Besides your coat nothing was fit to wear. We would have put armor together for you like we did for Zevran, but Viktory is the only other one here with mage armor."

Anders snorted.

"I like this better," he said. "Warden _'mage armor'_ hardly deserves the name. It's like they don't think a darkspawn will ever try to stab us with a knife or come at us with a sword, oh _no-_ "

"I _had_ noticed you were hiding a surprising amount of leather in that coat."

"I can't tell you how many times I was with Hawke out at the Wounded Coast or in the tunnels bellows Darktown and some half-rate rogue calling themselves an _'assassin'_ tried to stick a knife between my shoulder blades. It gets really tiresome."

"Hm," Alistair said thoughtfully. "Delilah Howe did the griffon, you should say _'thank you'_."

"I will," Anders promised, and ducked into unused side room to get dressed. He'd forgotten how new clothes felt, and new _boots._ Everything fit, and he felt clean and warm. The weight of the leather panels hidden inside his coat were a comfort, and he strode back into the dining room to help destroy breakfast feeling good; and mumbled _'thank you'_ to Mistress Del around his porridge when she turned up for breakfast, just as he'd said.

The Commander began to address the day's business once the Wardens had started to slow down, finally approaching full. Mhequi was going to stay with Fenris and talk over the… Anders didn't catch the word, it was something incredibly foreign-sounding, but everyone else seemed to know what the Commander was talking about. Nathaniel and Sigrun were going to make the preparations to get the Howe family on a ship to Amaranthine by the next morning. Lockhard, Andreas, and Rhannur were to scout out the city for traces of Taint, and-

"I'm going to the clinic," Anders said when the Commander's attention turned to him. "I've got… things to settle."

Like the Mage Underground, but the Wardens didn't need to know about that just yet.

"Alistair and Viktory and Fen can go with you," the Commander said. "I was going to take them with me to Bartrand Tethras's estate, but you'll need them more if the Templars spot you and decide to make a fuss."

Anders hadn't known the Commander was going to look at Bartrand's estate today- he'd told the Wardens about it when they'd said they were looking for a Taint source, but surely he'd want Wardens for that job?

"Zevran won't go anywhere without me, and I'd like to get to know Sergeant Tabris better."

Kallian looked mildly panicked and tried to hid in her food.

"It's only just across the square anyhow."

That was true enough. They all finished breakfast and split up. Anders led Fen and Viktory and Alistair to the clinic, and attracted a lot of attention as they went, what the with Warden armor and Anders being seen both in better, newer clothes and out and about while _not_ in Hawke's company. He shoved the thought of her away in irritation- he was still mad at her. He was _not_ running away, and he _could_ stop, and he'd stay in Amaranthine with the Wardens to _prove_ it to her!

The clinic had a larger crowd than usual waiting outside the closed doors when they arrived, and to Anders's practiced eye and honed senses a good percentage of them weren't actually in need of his services- they were just here to see if _he_ was, and to find out what was going on.

He found the doors already unlocked and suppressed a scowl, throwing them open wide. Usually, right after this, he'd light the lantern, but this crowd needed to be addressed. He grabbed a box that was still holding together from his camouflage trash pile and placed it just in front of the threshold, giving him the height to been seen by everyone.

"Yes, the Wardens of Ferelden are in Kirkwall," he told the crowd. "And yes, I'm going back with them. It's where I'm supposed to be- where I belong. Don't worry, I'm going to find _at least_ one other healer to take over this place. You're not being abandoned, or forgotten about."

"I heard the Hero is here!" someone yelled from the back.

"Arl-Commander Mahariel is also in Kirkwall, yes," Anders said. "He's up in Hightown today, taking care of business. _But_ we are ever-so-honored by the presence of _another_ Warden of the Blight-"

"Anders I swear I will _kick you off that crate!_ "

"-Alistair Mac Maric-"

He stuck the end of his staff down between Alistair and the box he was standing on and swept the incoming foot back. Alistair swore at him.

"-one of the Warden-Captains of Ferelden, in command at Soldier's Peak."

The crowd seemed greatly cheered by this news, and it had the added bonus of making most of the people who weren't in immediate need of his attention swarm Alistair.

"How good are you at healing?" he asked Viktory cheerfully, tossing the box back into the trash pile and leaning his staff up against one of the walls. It was time to _work._

"Shit."

"Well, you can boil water and make some icepacks, then."

Maybe it was strange to be happy in this sort of environment, but he really did love his work as a healer, and with all the extra energy he felt like he had, things were progressing quickly and well. Viktory was talking about Amaranthine and the Wardens with the few refugees who dared approach her, and had found someone willing to hear about the state of mages in the Gallows. Over in the corner, he could hear Alistair telling some adults in for the children or work injuries that the Arl-Commander had spoken to the Viscount about getting them home if they wanted to come back to Ferelden, but no nothing had been decided, the Arl-Commander wasn't the one in charge of Ferelden, was he? It was up to Queen Anora and Viscount Dumar to negotiate everything, but their homeland hadn't forgotten them. Fen was sitting happily at the foot of Anders's examination table, panting contentedly at patients as they were seen and distracting the children and the adults who were particularly jumpy at magic, but would never even _imagine_ that a mabari would be anything other than friendly so long as they weren't actively hostile.

Anders asked one of the street orphans whose cough he attended to to go up to the docks and ask Mistress Selby for _'more elfroot, if she's got any'_. Shortly, a mage from the Underground he knew well turned up in the clinic, as incognito as always in layers and layers of beggar's rags and cloaks hiding any number of surprises, his staff disguised as a walking stick for sick, battered man.

"Tara," Anders greeted him, and the disguised mage slunk off to the far corner. He followed after a moment, grabbing something to drink and another box to sit on as an excuse.

"Heard you're leaving," Tara told him. "Going back to the Wardens."

"Can't escape it," Anders said. "And I don't really want to, either. My Commander turned up and asked me to come back."

" _The_ Warden," Tara said, eyes glittering. "Lots of good things said about him."

"I need healers to take this place over, Tara. I've got leave, but these people shouldn't be left to suffer."

"You only manage here because of Hawke," the other mage reminded him. "We can't risk our own people down here."

"If they're a healer and can keep themselves from getting seriously hurt in a fight- are _willing_ to set some time aside to fight- they can take my place with Hawke," Anders offered. "She won't pass up having a healer on call, even if it's not me. And if she tries to throw a fit about it because she's still mad at me, Aveline will remind her how useful we are and tell her to stop wasting resources."

"Do I have to remind you how many mages can _actually_ fight, Anders?" Tara asked sternly, and Anders looked away slightly. Tara intimidated him a little bit- he was the Underground's link to the Mages' Collective in Ferelden, and he'd been an apostate all his life. He was one of the mages who _could_ fight, but even most longtime apostates were terrible at it. They'd avoided the Templars by staying completely unassuming and looking utterly defenseless, barely ever using their magic enough but to learn how to control it. "How many of us have never had the _luxury_ of being protected by the people you have?"

"I really don't want to just _leave_ them here," Anders said. "They need help."

"So stay."

"I can't-"

"You can't fight the Wardens?" Tara interrupted. "Or can't stay in Kirkwall with this _spiritual problem_ I got told about?"

Anders felt a chill go through him. He'd wondered who'd taken Ella in until she could be smuggled out of Kirkwall, and now he knew.

"The Wardens helped," he managed to say, trying not to quail under the other man's piercing look. "They- understood. I have to go back with them."

"Just as well that you're leaving," Tara told him after a moment. "Wouldn't do to have you around when _that_ got out."

"I- I can be your contact in Amaranthine," Anders said. "I know it pretty well, and the Wardens could always use more mages, if anyone wants to try their chances. And the Commander isn't one to go around hunting people who haven't done anything wrong. I don't know what he could do if the Templars came besides conscript anyone they caught, but- there's the Dalish if they're elves, and the Chasind in the Wilds or all the little places tucked away in the Frostbacks or the edges of the Brecilian Forest or- or out in the middle of absolutely nowhere for everyone else. Or just a way into southern Orlais and into the wilderness and mountains there, half a chance at an escape route that isn't already heavily monitored. Ferelden doesn't care that much about apostates until they start causing trouble, the Circle there has always been… _complacent,_ and it's made the Templars relaxed, relatively speaking. It's a nice, quiet country; barring that whole Fifth Blight thing."

"And when your Commander figures out what you're doing?" Tara asked. "Don't try to tell me you're not in trouble right now for deserting."

Anders shifted uncomfortably and shrugged. He really had no idea what the Commander might do if he found out that Anders had helped seed the Fereldan countryside with apostates.

"Then it's my problem, not anyone else's," he said, deflecting. " _Please,_ Tara. If nothing else, Varric Tethras will bribe the pants off the rank-and-file Templars, or blackmail the whole Gallows. What he can't find he can make up and convince them they _have_ actually done."

Tara snorted quietly.

"I won't promise anything more than that I'll ask around and see if anyone even _wants_ this sodding place," he said, and rose to shuffle out.

"Thanks, Tara."

The apostate grumbled at him, and Anders got back to work.

* * *

Hawke was usually so competent that you could easily forget how little experience she really had- how young she actually was. She'd been just about twenty, when the Blight had forced her family to flee Ferelden- Carver and Bethany, just a few weeks past eighteen.

Whereas Varric was thirty-seven, and knew with the awful certainty of experience that putting off looking for a kidnap victim to look when it was _less crowded_ was _exactly_ the wrong thing to do. The more time you left it the less likely you were to ever see the one you'd lost again.

He could forgive her her inexperience and panic, waking up from a night spent badly sleeping to Gamlen in the front room restless and worried about his sister not turning up for her usual visit, and finding a vase of white lilies on the writing desk, delivered the afternoon before by an _'admirer'_. She was intense about family, and thought she was doing the right thing. Varric knew better than to argue with someone in such a situation if it could be helped. He had other recourses.

The usual suspects had turned up nothing. A combing of the street lowlife, urchins and beggars and daytime drunkards, had turned up only slightly more- one boy who'd seen a lady from Hightown fall for an obvious and downright clumsy trick, a pickpocket faking an injury to lift a purse, except that _this_ lady had walked off with the _'injured'_ man.

In the usual course of things, Varric would have run out of options at this point- but lo and behold, a friend of his had _other,_ multi-skilled and quite competent, friends who were known for being good and civic-minded people. Heroes, even.

Anders was down at the clinic, he was unsurprised to be told. He also wasn't very surprised to hear there were Wardens with him, and the retelling of the little speech he'd given and the casual deflecting of a royal bastard gave him his first chuckle of the day.

When he turned up at the clinic, things were slow. Anders and the Wardens were taking lunch- well, the Wardens were taking lunch, and Anders was eating in bits and pieces as he looked over the last few patients that were in at the moment.

The Wardens glanced up at him when he walked in, and Varric noticed the man's- Alistair son of King Maric, how he wanted to pick the man's brains for story fodder- slight move for his sword before categorizing him as a known element. One used to fighting and enemies, he.

"Blondie," Varric said loudly, knowing that it wasn't a good idea to come up on Anders unannounced. Hawke had done it once, and ended up frozen to the wall and facing Justice. "Got a minute?"

"Let me finish."

A few more minutes wasn't going to make that much of a difference right now, Varric tried to tell himself as Anders tended to the last three people- a developing chest infection, a broken arm that needed a checkup, a throat so enflamed the woman couldn't eat or drink. Anders saw that last woman out with instructions on tea to drink, or the herbs to steep in her beer overnight if she didn't have the time or money for that, and put out the lantern and shut the doors.

"Now, I know you might still be mad at Hawke-"

" _Might be?"_ Anders asked.

"-but we're out of options and Hawke's in no place to think straight, and if you won't do it for her, do it for Leandra."

"What did she get into? It's only been one night, and Isabela was with _us._ "

"It's not her," Varric told him. "Leandra's gone, and there's a vase of white lilies nobody ordered on Hawke's writing desk."

Anders went very still. It had been a job years ago, but no one had forgotten the frustration of not being able to solve it, or the infuriating mystery of the noble apostate convinced of rogue blood magic.

"I thought your friends might be willing to help."

"We've got a lot of experience with missing people," Alistair said, popping into the conversation. "You'd be _amazed_ how easily people get misplaced in Ferelden."

"This one might be blood magic," was Varric's warning.

"We're really good at those too," Alistair assured him. "Hey, Fen!"

The mabari perked up.

"You want to help find a nice old lady?"

Fen barked and raced over. Varric did not look very comfortable with a dog that could stare him in the face, and backed up a few steps.

"I know where she was the last time anyone saw her," he said. "I'll go get Hawke and the others."

"We'll meet you there," Anders said. "Where?"

"Lady Elgant's. She was on her way to see her deadbeat brother."

Anders led the way to Lowtown, trying not to fiddle with his staff in worry and impatience. Leandra was _good_ to him, had always cared about things like if he was eating enough or if it was too cold in Darktown and told him stories about her husband and raising Bethany that gave him hope and encouragement in the times when it all seemed _really_ useless that people _could_ be good, that all it would take was understanding and care for mages to live freely.

Alistair and Viktory turned around when they heard the noise clatter of someone running in plate armor- Anders didn't, because he recognized the sound of Hawke.

"We brought something of hers," Aveline said, holding out a pillow cover. Fen snuffled in it for a minute and then started trotting about the road, nose to the ground, trying to find Leandra's scent. Over in the shadow of a building he took a sharp turn towards the stairs that would take them down and further in, and stopped at the top to look back and see if they were coming.

The group followed, Hawke so close that she kept almost overtaking Fen. They wound down most of Lowtown's staircases, and then a distinctive turn west just before the docks. Anders recognized it as the Foundry District. Hawke did as well, and finally rushed on ahead, set on the building where the investigation had begun.

"Does she always charge off like that?" Alistair grumbled.

Aveline sighed.

"Hawke doesn't have much use for tactical maneuvers if she can just run into the thick of things. She's always been like that. She charged darkspawn on the road from Lothering as well. _More than once. Without armor._ "

"Don't tell Theron that, he'll try to make her a Warden. How do you usually form up?"

"We don't," Anders told him. "Hawke gets in the middle of everything, Varric is responsible and lays covering fire and takes out any archers, Merrill races up after Hawke because she thinks rock armor will make her _invincible,_ and _I'm_ stuck in the back trying to heal the battle-happy idiots and end up with no time or mana left to even cast a simple fireball, especially when someone inevitably tries to kill me."

"Wow," Alistair said, looking at him askance. "Okay. And I thought _we_ were bad at battle tactics fighting the Blight. You _do_ do things like… try to draw them through doorways, right?"

"Maybe if _someone_ could think past a headlong charge-"

"Are we going to call her back, or let her get further into that building by herself?" Viktory asked.

 _Oh Andraste's flames, Hawke,_ Anders thought angrily at her as they all realized she'd gone in alone. _Wait for everyone else for once in your life!_

"Right," Alistair said. "We'd better catch up. I'm in front, Fen and the Guard-Captain flank me just behind; you-"

He pointed to Varric.

"-can you detect traps? Great, you walk with me but once we start fighting fall back, get any archers, mages, and demons, in that order. Viktory and Merrill, offensive, but Merrill you _stay back_ unless you need to get closer to cast. Viktory knows how to do close-quarters fighting, let _her_ get personal. Anders, you're in back unless you see a need to move up. You were with Theron, I trust you know how to handle yourself. And make sure we don't die."

He paused.

"Or make sure your Hawke doesn't die. If she likes charging in, we'll let her play Oghren."

" _Oghren_ never needed this much healing. _Oghren_ knew what he was doing."

"Did you _see_ the state she's in? She's not going to listen to anyone."

Fighting alongside Hawke had mostly never gone _horribly,_ though the general lack of direction she gave had sometimes made things more difficult and ended up causing more work for themselves, because Anders could be the only one who actually tried to work as a _team._ This had been frustrating, but the still hadn't realized just how much he'd missed the Commander being clear on who needed to do what until their group caught up to Hawke trying to destroy something like five shades and two rage demons all on her own. She was running around the room trying to avoid them because she couldn't afford to take any more hits, but with Alistair's directions they plowed through them in one, maybe two minutes.

Sheer numbers helped, of course, but there was a lot to be said for centralized command. Less people had gotten hurt than normal, and he'd gotten to cast a very satisfying firestorm on the shades when they'd clumped together.

Alistair had been right about Hawke, unfortunately- when Aveline tried to convince her to join the group, she just ignored her and kept pressing on. It turned into a pattern as they went from room to room. Hawke would attract everything that wanted to kill them, and then proceed to take avoidable hits while she focused on one enemy in particular as everyone else cleaned up the rest quite nicely.

And then they entered a large room that smelled strongly of blood and magic, with a little living area that was completely incongruous with its books and rugs and big painting over the fireplace with the rest of the foundry; and a mage at some long tables pushed up by one of the walls.

Hawke screamed and rushed him, which was _stupid_ because he'd had his back to them and Anders _knew_ that she knew that the best way to get a mage was to surprise them, and now she'd given them all away.

The mage called an impenetrable barrier around himself to keep Hawke's greatsword away, and from then on it was one of those days with a distinct overabundance of demons that was Kirkwall's signature specialty.

 _So_ many demons. Anders was sick and tired of demons.

And Hawke was _still_ whacking away in blind rage at the barrier. No one else was paying attention to her, occupied as they were with said demons, so Anders ducked out of the fight and raced over.

" _Demons!"_ he yelled at her, grabbing her shoulders and yanking her away. " _Demons!_ This won't drop until he's exhausted and needs a minute, _go kill demons!_ "

" _He-"_

"I'll stand here and get him when it falls, now _go!_ "

She did go, snarling as she went and venting righteous fury on the nearest desire demon. She was going to run out energy soon if she wasn't careful, but Anders past caring because now that he was so close to the mage and Hawke was taken care of he noticed what was on the worktables.

There was a woman's body on the one he was standing closest to, looking just slightly off and after a second Anders realized that it was because it was _stitched together from different people,_ only the head was missing and the picture over the fireplace looked somewhat like Leandra and _oh Maker-_

He was not going to throw up in the middle of battle. He could do that later. He had to find Leandra.

The mage had been working on something at the other table, and if the- the ragdoll body was _here-_

It was somewhat hard to see past the tightly-spinning energy of the barrier spell, but there was something large enough on that table-

" _Leandra!"_ he shouted, trying to be heard over the battle behind him. _"Leandra!"_

The shape on the table stirred- moved, carefully, like there was an injury or maybe drugs and there wasn't any room to get past the mage-

Anders tried anyway, hoping that even an attempt to get the last piece of this Maker-damned _thing_ the man was trying to create would make him drop the barrier, leave him vulnerable and Anders could occupy him while Leandra got away-

It succeeded in getting the barrier to drop, but was a massive miscalculation on everything else.

Any two-bit mage could consort with demons and learn blood magic. Often enough it _was_ the two-bit mages, apostates with so little power that they'd been overlooked or had found it relatively easy to hide, who went for it when confronted by Templars.

But this mage was Circle-trained, Anders could tell, and had clearly been no weakling in the power department before going to demons.

" _Hawke!"_ he screamed as he desperately tried to keep the blood mage off him, oh no _Blight take him_ the other man knew life drain and its swiftly-deadly blood magic cousin, he had to back up and that only left the blood mage trying to kill him with more room to work. _"Varric! Viktory!_ _ **Somebody!**_ _"_

He'd woken up feeling hugely energized and better than he had in years, but sheer reserves could only do so much when you were largely out-of-practice and your enemy could _steal your reserves from you._

The only good thing about blood magic was that, while powerful, spells specific to it were hard to keep up for an extended period of time. The bloody, swirling mist around the man's feet disappeared, and Anders rushed in, trying to close distance. It wasn't orthodox fighting but if he managed a shot-

The mage was Circle-trained, and that meant Circle-raised, so he found his opening right away and punched the man hard in the stomach.

By the standards of someone like Alistair or Aveline or Hawke, and probably even Varric or Isabela, it was a very hard hit at all. But Anders had stopped relying totally on magic to fight once he'd been recaptured the second time, because he wasn't an _idiot_ and while magic was his best weapon, any Templar could take it away once they got within sword distance. He _had_ to have something else. He'd spent his third escape- one of the longer ones- in Denerim learning about hitting and kicking and street brawls. Most of it had been hands-on, seat-of-the-pants experience because hey, he was a healer, wasn't he? Why _not_ use his own powers on himself in the name of learning new skills?

He'd never be a true brawler but the practice and the exercises for arm strength he'd learned had been _absolutely_ worth it when the Templars had found him, silenced him, and then instead of curling up and surrendering he'd used his staff as a club to knock one Templar over completely, leaving him with a concussion, and then punched the fool who'd decided he wouldn't need a helmet against a silenced mage right in the eye.

Then the other three had gotten him, but the subsequent recaptures had always taken a little longer, because Greagoir had been careful to inform any Templars sent to look for him that he wasn't afraid of getting physical. There was something about the idea of a mage who could cause horrible death at a distance and intense physical pain in all the fiddly little things like noses and fingers and ankles with a blow of a fist or foot that really _intimidated_ Templars. Mages weren't _supposed_ to fight with anything but magic.

Sod that.

Anders's punch staggered the blood mage, possibly more out of shock than real force, but it was good enough. He raised his staff and jammed it against the man's chest, sending him sprawling; but the blood mage retaliated by sweeping _his_ staff out and knocking Anders's feet from under him.

He hit his head on the floor hard, and spent a moment too long deciding whether to heal himself or not and the blood mage was looming over him, staff raised-

A crackle of weak electricity broke around his shoulders and the blood mage half-turned to see what was attacking him. Viktory grabbed his head in one hand, stabbed him in the chest with her knife with the other, and shoved him into an oncoming rage demon.

The blood mage exploded. Anders cast a hasty ice spell at that Viktory duplicated, and the weakened rage demon burned out.

Viktory picked up her staff from where she'd dropped it to cast her walking bomb spell, her smile hugely satisfied.

"I _knew_ I could do it," she told Anders smugly as she retrieved her knife. It looked a lot like Lockhard's sword, Anders noticed- it had to be a gift from the Voshai. Circle mages were strictly conditioned against knives, and even _he'd_ still felt uneasy and guilty and nervous enough the couple of times he'd tried to carry one to give it up. Unless Viktory was a true expert at emotional self-control, she wouldn't have thought to carry one on her own.

Anders used his own staff to lever himself off the ground and went immediately to Leandra's side, hunting for damage- bruising, slowness from being drugged, easy enough to fix. There was a line drawn in darkened paste across her throat, and he wiped it off with his sleeve before she woke up enough to notice it. The cloth roll of little surgery knives lying next to her that he was considering claiming for his own- he'd always wished for a set like that in the clinic- would be bad enough.

"Anders?" she asked woozily.

"We've got you, Leandra," he promised. "It's all right. It's over now."

* * *

Zevran prodded a decorative chest with his foot.

"It does not seem that there is much in this place," he said. "Besides rotting corpses. A disgrace to perfectly fine carpets."

The former estate of Bartrand Tethras was unimpressive, and even beyond the tedium of searching without a clear goal, Zevran was deeply bored. This was the fourth inside of a Kirkwall estate they'd seen since arriving in the city, and it looked exactly the same as all the rest. Did the architects of the Free Marches have no _imagination?_ The corpses might actually have _improved_ the aesthetics some.

At least they had finally discovered the treasure room, full of chests of family heirlooms, carefully packed away, and memorabilia from trips or presents too expensive or personal to simply get rid of.

"I like that there aren't corpses in here," Kallian offered, and then her voice got hesitant. "Um, Arl-Commander? Is that really-"

"Stop scavenging, Theron," Zevran said automatically, not even bothering to look. The armoire next to the decorative chest could be interesting, he decided.

"But-"

"We _have money,_ " he reminded Theron, going to work on the lock. "You are the _Arl of Amaranthine._ "

"But there are useful things! Just lying around! It's _wasteful._ "

"Such is civilization, _amora._ "

The lock clicked and he pulled the amoire doors open. It proved another disappointment- dwarf-sized clothes, though in some admittedly fine fabrics. He moved on to the shelves.

There was a rustling behind him.

" _Theron-"_

"There's a box down here," Kallian said, and Zevran looked over his shoulder to see her pull an iron box out of the back corner of the armoire. It had gold detailing- very nice.

"It's locked."

Zevran sat down next to her and took the box. It was heavier than he'd thought it would be and the lock was more difficult than he'd expected. Perhaps this was a jewelry strongbox?

It finally opened, and it wasn't jewelry. The box was heavier than it should be because the inside coated with a thick layer of glass, and all alone sitting inside was a long shard of something red- darker in the center, blackish- vaguely dusty, glittery, but likely harder than it looked. Zevran yanked a skirt out of the closet, picking up the shard with it, and inspected its planes through the cloth. It picked up motes of sparkling red residue.

"What is it?" Kallian asked, leaning in; and he gently pushed her back.

"It is lyrium, I think."

"I didn't know it came in different colors-"

" _Zevran!"_ Theron exclaimed, and there was such panic in it that his head whipped around to see where the danger was. "What are you- no _put it back! Put that_ _ **back!**_ _"_

* * *

Hawke hadn't wanted to stick around now that she had her mother back and everything was dead, and Alistair was happy to see her leave. They were not battle-compatible and this got her out of the way of their search for information. The rest of her friends went with her- Varric and Merrill for emotional support and Aveline to start compiling the file on the case- so it was just him, Viktory, Anders, and Fen again, as it should have been.

They held a short sort-of funeral for the unfinished patchwork body. Alistair stumbled over the prayers and Chant verses because this was just a collection of parts, not a _person;_ but each bit had been alive and part of a person when it had been attached in the right place-

The blood mage was much easier. Him the just burned, no attempts at prayer beforehand. Fen watched the flames burn themselves out while the humans looked around.

Alistair didn't like what they found. Most of the items were innocuous, but there was a journal filled with obsessive entries that disturbed him a _lot_ for the insight it gave into this particular personal insanity, and the books-

The books were nothing that couldn't be found in a Circle library, and that simple normalcy was the worst part.

"You can't _get_ these outside the Circles," Anders said, looking down at the copy of _Human Anatomy and the Balance of the Mortal Body_ that he was holding. It was a standard healers' reference, probably something he'd used hundreds of times. "I know, I looked during one of my escape attempts, and then took them along the next time."

"You _stole_ from the library at Kinloch Hold?" Alistair asked, impressed; but Anders glared at him. There was an old fury there.

"Escapes were one thing," he said. "But apparently stealing _yourself_ is less important than stealing the books you need to do real, _good work_ once you're in a position to do so. It got me a _year_ in the solitary cells. It was that, or death. I think they were trying to make me obvious crack so they'd have an excuse to kill me anyway."

There were reasons for why Circle books had to stay in the library or in the rooms of Senior Enchanters, good ones about keeping magical knowledge away from maleficars and apostates who didn't know what they were doing. As someone who'd learned in the Circles, Anders would have known about the death penalty when he'd decided to take those books. It said a lot both about how well he'd thought he could evade the Templars and the price he was willing to pay to avoid going back to Kinloch Hold that he'd done it anyway- Alistair wondered who'd convinced Greagoir to rule contrary to established Chantry law, and how.

"These are from the _Gallows,_ " Viktory said. She had some of the books open to the flip side of the title page, where the blank paper was used as a record of where the book belonged. Sure enough, the last ink stamp in all of them was the outline of the Gallows. "Who could have-"

She stopped, lost.

"He seemed to know what he was doing," Alistair said. "Maybe he was a Senior Enchanter?"

"No," she said. "I would have recognized him. But maybe he was a transfer in, after I left- I know someone would have been sent to replace me when I was moved to the Jainen Circle. Just another Harrowed mage, but one of the Senior Enchanters would have had to- to _help_ him."

"Do you have any idea which one could have-"

" _None of them!"_ Viktory yelled, and the books slammed shut all at once. "This was _blood magic, necromancy;_ and they'd all be too scared or the Templars or too invested in proving them _wrong-_ "

"There's a note in this one," Anders said.

 _My dear friend,_

 _I have obtained the books you requested. I'll leave them at our usual hiding spot. Please collect them as soon as possible. I would hate to see them in the wrong hands!_

 _Your last letter was fascinating! You have proven me wrong, once again, by doing the impossible. I shouldn't have doubted your resolve, and I hope you will keep me apprised of further progress._

 _Your friend and colleague,_

 _O_

"This sound like anyone you know?" Alistair asked, and handed it to her to see.

She took it and looked at it. And then kept looking at it.

"Viktory?"

The paper was shaking.

"Warden Arend?"

She let go of it and it fluttered in the air. It hadn't reached the carpet yet when Viktory screamed in wordless anger and betrayal and threw the nearest book at the wall, then shot ice through the bed. Wood splintered and fabric tore, creating a tiny iceberg with the mangled bedframe caught inside. The other end of her staff came up, and the exposed ends of wood and cloth caught fire and burned away in an instant, creating a cloud of steam and a spreading circle of water seeping into the carpet. Anders hurriedly snatched up the books still lying there.

" _That bastard!"_ Viktory screamed at the ice, striking it with the end of her staff. It started to fracture. _"That_ _ **hypocrite! Liar! TRAITOR!**_ _"_

The ice shattered completely and the end of the staff landed heavily in the soaked carpet beneath, rocking forward slightly as Viktory caught her balance. There were furious tears streaming down her face.

"It was the _First Enchanter,_ " she said. "It was _Orsino._ "

The _First Enchanter?_

"He said- he _always said_ that he took that job to protect the rest of us from the Templars, from _Meredith-_ he's _exactly_ what they're supposed to guard against-"

"We have to take this to the Circle," Alistair said.

"You can't!" Anders protested. "This is _exactly_ the sort of thing Meredith wants to hear- she'll use it as her excuse to do whatever she likes to the mages in the Gallows!"

Viktory whirled on him.

"He can't just _get away with this!_ "

"It's one mage," Alistair said. "Even if it's the First Enchanter, you don't take one blood mage out on a whole Circle-"

" _Meredith would!"_ Anders shouted at him. "She's not _Greagoir!_ This isn't Kinloch Hold where they'll _listen_ to you about demons and blood magic!"

"If we ignore this I'll kill Orsino _myself,_ " Viktory snarled, and if this wasn't defused _right now_ he was going to get caught up in an arcane fight between mages.

"We'll take it to Theron," Alistair said, almost as much to keep from having to make this decision as to head off the impending fight. "Come on, back up the books and that journal and anything else that could help and let's go back."

Anders and Viktory both looked mutinous about it, but followed instructions. They silently fumed at each other the entire rambling walk back to Hightown, and Alistair spent most of it praying that no Templars would show up because there was only so far he'd be able to claim Warden immunity for outright murder, especially murder by mages.

It was an immense relief to make it past the Chantry uninterrupted and see the door to Fenris's estate.

"Hey!" he called as they walked in. "Theron! We need you!"

"Not here," Mhequi answered loudly from the foyer. She and Fenris were sitting across from each other on the floor, cross-legged, and she was lightly tracing the lines of lyrium in his skin. They glowed just under her finger and stayed for a seconds, trailing her path. Fenris's eyes were half-closed, and his expression was strangely absorbed-

"Should I, we, uh-"

"Is learning to sense magic," Mhequi said. "Delicate. Hard until much practice. Will hate less once knows how lyrium sings, smell of power."

"Okay, great. But that looks like a, uh- _'in private'_ face. Maybe you want a room? With a door?"

Mhequi gave him a very unimpressed look and pressed her right hand flush against Fenris's, holding them together with her left, and leaned in to whisper something to him in Tevene.

"I will," Fenris said, voice and strong and clear despite his muzzy expression. "Gladly rearrange your internal organs if you continue to make assumptions."

"Okay, okay, sorry," Alistair said. "It just looked like it might be, er, embarrassing to do with an audience."

"Only embarrassed one is _you,_ " Mhequi told him pointedly. "Fenris. Sense that?"

The elf frowned very slightly in concentration.

"Yes?" he said uncertainly. "It tastes like… hot glass?"

Mhequi's eyebrows rose.

"Glass? Hm. Smells as sea lightning to me."

Something about that description niggled Alistair's memory. The Voshai smelled magic-

"Sea lightning- like water that was boiled too fast?" he asked. "Are we talking about the Fade?"

"Good," Mhequi said. "What else?"

"Rancid oil," Fenris told her. "Blood, death. C-"

His eyes flew open and his expression twisted in disgust and bitterness as he abruptly left whatever happy place he'd reached during Mhequi's lesson. He pressed his fist to his mouth, as if it would make the tastes go away.

"What?" Mhequi asked calmly. She shifted her hand so their fingers linked, and a soft blue glow started to trail slowly up his arm.

" _Coin metal,"_ Fenris spat, and was there something behind the anger there?

"Good," she told him. "Good, _ishqilija_."

He scowled, but it looked more defenseive than anything else with the set of his shoulders.

"What were you doing?" he asked Alistair.

"Fighting demons, killing a blood mage, saving innocent people," Alistair told him, trying to be flippant in the face of Fenris's discomfort and put him at ease. "The usual things."

It seemed to work. Fenris either buried his own emotions very well now that he'd had a moment or was sufficiently distracted by the news of what their day had been like so far that he relaxed- well, stopped looking like he was a couple wrong words from attacking something.

"Anders and Viktory can tell you about it," Alistair said. "I _really_ need to go get Theron."

It was nice that his friend's duty for the day had only taken him across the square. Theron could have easily assigned himself to things that would take him out into the city, and then Alistair would have had to spend the whole day finding him, or just waiting around until he came back.

"Hey Theron! Theron!"

Oh great, _corpses._ At least they didn't look freshly dead.

"We've kind of ended up in another situation, Theron. One of those great life-and-death moral questions that we keep running into."

No, no one in the foyer. He'd have to check the back hallways.

"Kirkwall is such a _great_ place, isn't it? I vote we never come to the Free Marches _ever again._ "

Wait, he smelled- lyrium?

 _Wrong_ lyrium?

Alistair picked up his pace and followed his nose to a room in the back of the house- household valuables storage. Boxes and chest and the armoire on the wall were open, proving that someone had been in here searching around.

But there were other signs too. Someone had fought here. Not for very long, and there was potentially-relieving lack of blood; but things had been knocked over and not righted, and it stank of magic behind the wrong lyrium-

There it was lying on the floor by the armoire, a short distance away from a slipped cloth streaked with its red dust, and-

Lyrium, it _was_ lyrium, and that was most of what he could smell but either he'd begun to acclimatize to the way it pervaded Kirkwall or the feeling of demons and magic and the Fade hadn't quite gone away from the earlier fight just yet because under all that, he could sense Taint.

"Theron! Zevran! Sergeant Tabris!"

Still nothing.

" _Theron!"_


	10. Chapter 10

Commander of the Grey in the Free Marches Aage Osterholt looked down at the letter in utter disbelief once more. Outside the thick glass windows of his office the afternoon sun was shining brightly over Ansburg, but the warmth wasn't quite reaching him.

"Kirkwall!" he said to himself, hoping against fact that he was mistaken. _"Kirkwall!"_

There was a perfunctory knock on his door, and Enoch Van Markham, his Constable, slipped in.

"The Warden-Commander of Ferelden is _in Kirkwall,_ " Aage told him, and Enoch froze.

"Why is he _there?_ We don't go there! Wardens don't _go_ to _Kirkwall!_ Why would he ignore something like that!"

"I don't think he _knows,_ " Aage said, and put the letter down, smoothing it out against his desk as he tried to stay calm. "Ferelden didn't have Wardens properly before, and then the First Warden just threw the country at him after the Blight was over. He didn't have a preceding Commander to tell him why we don't go to Kirkwall."

"You're sending me to go get him," Enoch said.

"Tell them," Aage ordered. "I don't care that it's only supposed to be Commanders who know about this, we forsook the secret when Larius and Janeka lost it and we had to sacrifice most of our own people to staff that blighted tower. I can't go myself and you're a Senior Warden, but not enough so- Maker willing, Andraste bless- that you're coming up on your Calling, and you know better than to pay attention. Get down to Kirkwall and drag the Fereldans out before Corypheus gets to them. I do _not_ want to explain to Weisshaupt that _we're_ the reason that the First Warden's pet project got lost in Vimmark Prison. Or have to come up with an excuse to the Queen of Ferelden why she's lost her newest arl."

"At once- I'll take the post road."

"But if it turns into a them-or-you, Enoch- make sure _you're_ the one who comes home."

* * *

Andraste's _Flames_ how many times could they lose the same person? Why was the Commander so bad at staying found? Why did he keep running off? What had happened to Zevran and Kallian?

At least wherever his Commander was, Nathaniel tried to comfort himself, he had Zevran with him. He couldn't _really_ be in trouble if Zevran was with him. Zevran would never allow it.

"You're _absolutely certain?_ " Alistair asked again, and Nathaniel took another look over the room. Alistair had run for the other Wardens as soon as he'd found the Commander missing and Tainted lyrium- _Tainted lyrium,_ how was that even possible- and then the Wardens had gone to Varric. Nothing had been disturbed from how Alistair had found the room, except for the lyrium being put back in its box. Mhequi and the Voshai were clustered around it, discussing it amongst themselves.

Otherwise, besides the signs of a fight, there was nothing.

"If the lyrium had gotten to one of them, there would be more blood," Varric said. "But there isn't any here."

Other people might have been relieved to find no blood, but Nathaniel found it profoundly disturbing. No blood meant that whoever the Commander had ended up fighting, he hadn't been able to land a blow. And judging by the amount of damage to the room, it hadn't been a very long fight, either. Someone had snuck up on the Commander, and Sergeant Tabris, and _Zevran;_ and now they were all gone.

"It's spooky," Sigrun said, and he looked down at her.

"I don't like it."

"I'm not too worried about the Commander," Sigrun told him. "He always comes home. But- Tainted lyrium? They never said anything about _that_ in the Legion, and we should know. Rocks can't catch Taint, or else we'd all have been dead hundreds of years ago."

"Lyrium is not rock," Mhequi said.

"Welll, no, you're right. It's a sort of mineral-"

Mhequi cut her off with a scoffing _'hn'_ and Nathaniel could imagine, now that he'd heard her speak in the Fade, the wealth of words she was condensing into that one sound.

"Alive things become Tainted," she said. "Humans, elves, dwarves, animals. Spirits, demons, _gods._ "

"And that's why lyrium shouldn't-"

"Not _listening,_ " Andreas said. "You say, _'lyrium grows'_ , yes? Alive things grow."

"It's a figure of speech," Nathaniel told him. "It's not literally true."

" _Ach,"_ Rhannur beseeched the ceiling. "Help us about foreigners."

"Lyrium grows," Mhequi maintained. "Lyrium sings. Lyrium is magic. Magic for alive things. Lyrium-"

Her expression got frustrated, and she gestured at Lockhard before going off in Voshinnen.

"Uh- lyrium is the most potent physical embodiment of the Fade," Lockhard translated. "The Fade, as the origin point of all magic, being the plane upon which thought and feeling and all other things which we, from our perspective, label _'immaterial'_ have a life of their own; and also being the place where our souls can truly be in- uh, this isn't an idiom that really translates, sorry- _'in harmony with the melody of the warp of the universe'_ ; is a vital component of the objective universe. Lyrium bridges the gap between our world and the Fade in a similar manner to mages, because magic is in the blood and lyrium is the, uh, _'the blood of the world'_ , the earth, the stone-"

"' _The Stone'_ ," Andreas corrected, emphasizing the particular dwarven twist that changed the significance in Trade.

"-and just as blood and the Stone are living things and carry the memory of- _who_ they were? Sorry, just a second-"

He consulted Mhequi. Nathaniel didn't know what was being said, but tone carried past language, and Lockhard obviously didn't believe what he was being told.

"What?" Nathaniel asked.

" _Is_ literal," Mhequi told Lockhard with a pointed glare, and turned to Nathaniel. " _You_ know. You saw. The Stone remembers. Memories for alive things. Memories for _minds._ We remember. The Stone remembers. Fade remembers. _Lyrium_ remembers, because Fade and Stone. Lyrium sing what it knows. Voshai listen. We learn what others forget, not notice."

"Great," Alistair spoke up. "Can your singing _'living'_ lyrium tell us where Theron went?"

"No," Mhequi told him, irritation clearly written across her face. "Not _listening._ All the things _alive._ The Stone alive, lyrium alive- how else golems? How else magic change things? If Stone not alive, if lyrium just magic, then how golems?"

"You need a _lot_ of magic," Alistair said. "If that's not hurting anyone right this second and you can't fix it, close the box and come help look."

" _Foreigners,"_ Mhequi spat, but closed the box for the red lyrium and got up to look for more signs of their missing people.

They split up to search the estate. Varric suggested the possibility of tunnels in the cellar, so Nathaniel took Alistair and Sigrun and went with him.

"They go everywhere under the city," Varric told them, when they found said hypothesized tunnels. "There's probably a dozen ways to Darktown and Lowtown from here. Maybe even out to the docks or the Wounded Coast. This high up, you can get almost anywhere if you tunnel long enough."

"So they could have gone anywhere," Nathaniel said glumly, and looked down the branching tunnels in the vain hope that some sort of trail sign or Warden Roads marking had been left behind to indicate the path they'd taken. "And anyone could have come up this way to the estate without being seen."

"Not just anybody," Varric disagreed. "Somebody who knew this place was deserted. These tunnels were boarded over, and now the boards are gone. Someone's been watching this place."

"Bandits?"

He shrugged.

"They're not usually so forward-thinking. But the Carta, maybe."

"Why would the Carta-" Nathaniel started to ask, and then stopped himself. No, of course the Carta would have had a reason to drag them off. If they'd claimed this estate, then the Commander and the others had been on the Carta's ground, and fair game for torture or intimidation. But-

"The estate hasn't been robbed, and there's plenty of valuable things here," Sigrun said before he could bring it up. "The only reason not to take and sell any of this is if you've already got all the money you want, and bandits or the Carta _never_ have enough."

Nathaniel was about to suggest lyrium smugglers, since the estate was close to the Chantry; but then remembered that the red lyrium had been left behind.

"Maybe they were after something worth more money?" Alistair asked. "Ransoming nobility can be profitable."

"No one looks at an elf and thinks _'nobility'_ ," Nathaniel said. "They'd _have_ to know who he was. He was even wearing his armor today. But who tries to ransom _Wardens?_ "

"What if it's not for ransom?" Alistair suggested. "What if it was the Crows? Zevran was worried about being recognized, and if anyone could sneak up on him and drag off Wardens without a trace- it would be assassins, right?"

Oh, Andraste, it had _better_ not have been the Antivan Crows. Nathaniel knew he wouldn't be able to handle that, and it was very unlikely that they'd find either the ship they'd taken or wherever they'd holed up before they got their missing people back in pieces- if they ever saw hide or hair of them ever again.

"They'd have left something if it was the Crows," Varric said. "They like people knowing when they're responsible. Mysterious disappearances might work in Antiva, but here they would have left feathers. You didn't find any feathers, did you?"

They hadn't, which meant they were out of leads again.

"Maybe they just… walked off on their own?" Alistair suggested. It was a weak idea, but else was there?

Sigrun brightened.

"The Commander would have gone looking for more of this red lyrium himself, that's like him!"

"Except the person who bought that idol could be anywhere in Thedas," Varric said. "There's no reason for it to still be in the city."

"But it _could_ be, couldn't it?" Sigrun asked.

"Let's go get Fen," Nathaniel sighed, and tried not to worry. "Maybe he'll pick up a useful scent trail down here."

* * *

Zevran woke to darkness and the stuttering sound of Theron's panicked breathing. It wasn't the first time he'd woken to this, but it was the first time in a long time he'd done so while lying on stone.

And the first time he'd done so while chained and blindfolded.

Well, this was never a good sign.

He forced himself to keep his breathing even and his body limp and still, feigning unconsciousness as he concentrated on his other senses. The air was cool and dry, sound echoed, and he ached. The arm he was lying on had gone numb. Cave?

He tried to remember how he'd gotten here. He'd been holding the lyrium, Theron had gone frantic and demanded he put it back, and then a mage had stepped into the doorway and leveled a spell at them and- nothing.

They weren't usually so badly-prepared to handle mages. Zevran tried to think who they'd made angry enough to hire an apostate to come after them, but then there was a rustle of cloth, silk sliding on stone, and Theron whined in fear.

It was an intimately familiar sound to anyone who'd gone through Crow training. Someone had _gagged_ Theron, but almost certain left him without a blindfold so he could see what was about to happen.

Three seconds ago Zevran had been prepared to deal with anything and everything. But they had _Theron_ and Theron was making that little noise, almost a sob, of someone who knew they were going to be hurt and hurt horribly and no one was going to save them-

He had to pretend to be unconscious until he knew what was going on. Anyone who touched his Warden could die an awful, painful death _later._

"I'm not certain anyone has ever tried this on a Warden before."

A woman, accented Trade. Something vaguely familiar. Nevarran? No. He knew Orlesian and Antivan and Rivaini and Fereldan accents quite well, and an Ander accent was much more distinctive. So if not Nevarran- _Tevene._

"I think you will make a good bodyguard. And such opportunities- a child of Arlathan, waiting on my every whim! I will be the envy of Minrathous. _No one_ can keep an adult of your kind for long, but _you-_ "

A silence, and Zevran strained to hear anything recognizable. At the end of it was the pop of a cork being pulled from a vial. He tried not to imagine all the things that could be in it, and failed utterly. He was too good at his former job.

"-and a matching set, even," the woman murmured. "A guard for the student and a guard for the master. He will have to recognize me _then,_ when I come home with his runaway and one of Arlathan's for my very own. And a pretty she-elf for the stadium and a _gorgeous_ male one. I wonder if I should keep him, or offer him to Danarius."

He knew that name he'd heard it-

A matching set. _Fenris._ They'd been caught by Tevene slavers.

"Oh you don't like that, do you! What is he to you, elf?"

 _Don't answer,_ Zevran begged Theron silently. _For the both of us, don't answer._

But the woman had apparently meant it was a rhetorical question, because it didn't sound like Theron's gag had been removed.

"Now, what shall I call you?" the woman wondered aloud. "If you're good, I'll let you keep your name. But you _have_ to be good. No trying to escape, no trying to hurt any of us, no trying to kill yourself. You're _mine,_ you understand?"

Nothing, but Zevran could hear the gag being removed.

"Answer me!"

" _Yes,"_ and Zevran's heart broke because Theron should never sound like that, should never answer in a sob, in fear and disgust and defeat.

" _Properly,"_ the woman demanded. " _'Yes, I understand,_ _ **Mistress**_ _'_."

"Yes, I understand, Mistress."

Theron should never call a human that, should never call a _Magister_ that. He was Dalish.

"' _I will devote my life to you, Mistress'_."

She was _enjoying_ this and Zevran was going to take it out of her _skin._

"I will devote my life to you, Mistress," he heard Theron repeat, and for a wildly inappropriate moment he was irrationally jealous that Theron wasn't saying that to _him._

"Good. Now tell me what you know about Fenris."

"He wants to kill Danarius."

"A given," the woman said, words cold. "He will have to be corrected. Why are you living with him? Don't lie to me! We've been watching him for longer than you've been in this city, but suddenly he trusts _you?_ "

"I told him I would lie about him being a Warden so he'd be left alone, and that I'd help him kill Danarius."

" _Well,"_ she said, and that was a bad tone. "Well well well _well._ We can't be having _that._ Tell me who the male is to you."

 _Oh no don't, don't, whatever she's threatening you with Theron_ _ **don't**_ _-_

"' _Ma vhen'an_ , _'ma'len_ , _'ma'sal'shiral-_ "

 _Why, Theron?_

"In Trade!" the woman snapped.

"My home, my other self, my soul's-"

"Hah," she said quietly; and then louder: "Remember. No escaping, no attacking, no suicide."

Click of a lock, clank of chains- she'd let him out? But-

Footsteps coming towards him. He faked startling awake when the blindfold was ripped off him. The woman who'd been talking turned out to be the mage from the estate, and he wasn't very surprised about it. There was a knife on the floor next to his head, just within his field of vision, which she must have just put down to grab his blindfold. The edge of it was bloody. She was still holding a small stopped vial of blood in her other hand, between thumb and forefinger, where she could tilt it to catch the little light in the cave, or make the blood within flow about.

Theron was standing some feet away, staring in utter despair, silently weeping. He still had his armor and his sword and his shield, but he wasn't even trying to look for an opening to use them.

The Tevene woman set another small glass vial down with a quiet _clink_ on the stone floor, next to the knife; and Zevran noticed that the back of Theron's hand had been cut open.

"Fill it," she ordered Theron, and he walked over, dropping to his knees and picking up the knife.

Zevran could get out of rope, but chains were something else altogether. If he hadn't woken up when this woman had been around, he might have been able to get to his lockpicks. He could tell that no one had searched him, and they could have fought their way out of this together, but now there was no _time._

He lunged up when Theron took the knife in hand and kissed him, because nothing he could do here would break a blood mage's compulsion.

"It's all right," Zevran murmured against his lips, and felt the bite of the blade.

It really wasn't, but it had to be said, while he still could.

* * *

Fen did pick up a trail in the tunnels, and for the second time today Alistair found himself organizing the tactics of a search party.

He would have liked to have had Varric along, but the dwarf had bowed out to go back to Hawke's and lend emotional support. Alistair couldn't begrudge him that.

What he hadn't been expecting was for Anders to step up and offer his knowledge of Kirkwall's undercity.

"How do _you_ know about these tunnels?"

"I'm down here a lot?"

"They all look the same!"

"All right, all right. I _may_ be deeply involved in smuggling Gallows escapees and apostates out of the city."

" _Anders!"_

"No, don't you even try that! You have _no idea-_ "

"Captain," Viktory cut in. "Now isn't the time."

"We're going to talk about this later," Alistair promised.

So it was him and Anders up front with Sigrun and Fen; the Voshai, Fenris, and Viktory in the middle; and Nathaniel watching their backs in case of an ambush. They wound through the tunnels and found no signs of the Carta, or lyrium smugglers, or bandits, or weird cultists which _why._

"Don't ask _me_ why Kirkwall has so many cults," Anders said. "And they're all violent, too."

" _I hate this city,"_ Alistair said to himself.

"I'd like to go home after this," Sigrun agreed.

"Seconded!" Nathaniel called from the back.

"We're veering off… northeast," Anders told them when they passed the next intersection. There was graffiti here, angular murals in the Kirkwall style, which meant there was lots of screaming and unpleasantness involved. This was such a _charming_ place. "Towards the Wounded Coast. We'll definitely be running into bandits and slavers soon, in groups. Be watchful."

Alistair had no idea what Theron had been thinking when he'd run off this time, but it had better be something good or he was going to get the yelling lecture again. Pulling this _once_ had been more than enough. He could have left a _note._

"Actually," Anders continued. "We definitely _should_ have run into someone trying to kill us by now. It's too quiet down here. I don't like it."

"I am all for things staying quiet," Alistair told him. "Stop tempting fate-"

There was was a very faint gasp of breath from the rear of the party, and Alistair was turning, sword and shield up, even as he registered someone stabbing Nathaniel through the ribs. That was an _assassin's_ sound-

A sword skittered off the side of his armor and a knife caught a chink, slipping partway through the space between plates before his turn back around changed the angle and sent the knife flying. He smashed his assailant against the wall with his shield and moved on reflex to angle away from the kick aimed at his crotch, practice making that avoidance into a move that placed more of his weight behind the shield to keep his attacker pinned. This was the only way he'd found that would let him reliably win at a sparring match against-

" _Zevran?"_

* * *

The Magister had left, and taken Theron with her, and Maker and Creators he didn't _care_ that she'd given him the same bounds as Theron, he was going to come up with a way to get her killed. Blight take _all_ blood mages and the entirety of the Tevinter Imperium!

Zevran made himself breathe and think. He was absolutely abysmal at this, now. He knew he would have been able to stand up to this sort of torture- the Magister hadn't named it such, but he knew it when he experienced it- before he'd come to Ferelden, but caring about people made it so hard to detach. He wasn't cut out for this sort of thing any longer, and knowing all the ways to hurt someone and that slavery in Tevinter was the absolute pinnacle of Dalish nightmares- he had to stop thinking _now._

They were going to get out of this, because it was unacceptable to do otherwise. He'd skated by on technicalities when given orders with the Crows, and he could do it here.

No suicide- well, he was nowhere near that point. He had Theron to live for.

No attacking his captors- potentially tricky, but he wasn't in a position to try at the moment anyhow.

No escaping- hm.

The Magister had left him chained, and hadn't searched him or divested him of armor and blades. Apparently she thought that magical compulsions were enough to keep a well-behaved prisoner. So he still had his lockpicks, and if he only wanted out of the chains and not to actually _go_ anywhere- there was no foreign shove on his mind to prevent him from doing it, and he smiled. Loophole number one.

He thought about what number two might be while he got his hands on his picks and got himself out, as quietly as he could. This particular cave had been fitted with a heavy door, but you never knew how sound carried until you tested it for yourself.

He got the manacles on his feet opened and sat there for a minute, still thinking, before standing and going over to Sergeant Tabris.

For a society built on mass slavery, the Tevenes seemed awfully confident in the timidity of their captives. Kallian still had her armor and greatsword as well. Fort Drakon was more secure than this!

Zevran placed a hand over Kallian's mouth before he woke her up.

"We have been captured," he explained quietly, when she tried to tug at the chains. "By a Tevinter Magister using blood magic."

That got her to freeze, and Zevran belatedly remembered the Tevene slavers in the Denerim alienage.

"She took Theron," he continued. "He and I are under a compulsion from blood magic. We cannot try to attack our captors or otherwise escape. But there is nothing about helping anyone _else_ do the same."

He removed his hand from her mouth and went to work on her chains. They came off quickly- it was easier to do on other people.

"Hide," Zevran told her. "Get out if you can. I have no idea what the layout of this place is-"

"I don't need to know," Kallian cut him off, tone grim. "I've fought my way out of strange places full of people trying to kill me before."

Well now.

"Oh?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, and he thought she wasn't going to elaborate, but then-

"Did you hear about what happened in Arl Vaughn's estate, just before the Blight?"

"A number of elvhen women, including the brides, were kidnapped from a wedding, and the grooms took exception. They stormed the estate to rescue the women. One was killed, the other caught in the alienage and executed."

"Nelaros was the one who died," Kallian told him. "He was supposed to marry me. I didn't want to get married, but he didn't deserve that. My cousin Soris was the one they executed, but it should have been me. They broke into the estate to get my sword. Everyone in the alienage knew I'd learnd from my mother, and that I was decent with one. I was the one who killed all those humans. Soris just took the fall for me, because he refused to put me back in a situation where _shem_ men could try to rape me again."

This explained a lot.

"Get that door open and I'll see what difference real martial training makes in my body count."

Zevran _liked_ her. When they got out of this, he was telling Theron to promote her.

The door opened onto a side tunnel- this room couldn't have been originally meant to hold captives, because no one put a prison at the end of a tunnel with a turn that was just _perfect_ for an ambush.

Kallian noticed it too, because she looked back at him hopefully.

"You're sure you can't come?"

"Unfortunately," Zevran said. "Go. Get out, and bring the others."

He left the door open behind her because there was no point in pretending he wasn't responsible for this. It also left him able to hear the sounds of battle joined as Kallian started taking down slavers- or, at least, he hoped that was what he was hearing.

When the Magister came back, he was sitting _just_ inside the doorway, because he had a point to make. It didn't go unnoticed.

"You think you're _clever,_ don't you?" she sneered at him, and pulled out the vial of his blood. "Clearly mere compulsion isn't enough."

Zevran didn't like the sound of _'mere'_ compulsion, but he refused to regret this.

Magic snapped across the surface of the glass vial.

In his mind, something else snapped.

"Find your other companions and kill them," she ordered; and yes, of course he would, with all his skills. "Bring me back their heads, all but Fenris. _Him,_ capture. Make him watch what happens when he thinks he can have _friends._ Tell him that Hadriana sent you. Do this and I'll let you see your Dalish again; and together we'll find out how much he likes having a blood thrall for a lover."

* * *

" _Anders!"_

"Just hold him there!" Anders yelled back at Alistair. "He got Nathaniel _in the lungs,_ he needs me more!"

Nathaniel tried to say something, but punctured lungs wouldn't let him.

" _Stop,"_ Anders ordered him, and tried not to sound desperate about it. He'd only just gotten his friends back, he wasn't going to lose Nathaniel- not so soon, not like this. "No talking, not even after you're healed."

When he'd been just a Warden, he wouldn't have been able to handle this. But Kirkwall had taught him about emergencies, and while it wouldn't be a simple, one-step healing, he could do the first, most vital part _fast._ The important thing was to get those punctures closed and the new tissues strong enough for Nathaniel to start coughing up the blood pooling in his lungs.

Anders's surprising reserves were much more useful here than they had been against the blood mage. After a couple minutes Anders had helped Nathaniel roll over and support himself on hands and knees as he hacked blood onto the rocks.

"If it starts to hurt again, _come get me,_ " he ordered. "Don't be a sodding idiot about it. Lockhard, Viktory, watch him."

"This is getting difficult!" Alistair called, and Anders hurried over.

"Is he hallucinating?" Sigrun asked worriedly. "Has he been poisoned? Some poisons do this-"

"There's no poison," Anders said. He'd only done a surface check, the barest look with his magic, but he could tell that much.

Alistair grunted and leaned more heavily into his shield. Zevran had tried to shove away from the wall again, but Alistair weighed more and had the advantage of being properly braced against the ground.

"It's that lyrium, isn't it?"

"No," Anders said immediately. "I know how that feels, and this isn't it. I'd say demons, because this is Kirkwall, but it doesn't feel like that either."

"He tastes like blood," Fenris said from behind them, and Anders jumped. He hadn't heard the elf come over.

"Funny, I didn't think you'd gotten the chance to get that close. Does the Commander know-"

Zevran turned his head and looked straight at Fenris.

"Hadriana sent me," he said, and Fenris starting cursing angrily in Tevene.

" _Someone,"_ Alistair said. "Had better start explaining _right now._ "

"Danarius keeps sending slave catchers after me," Fenris said. "I believe that he's testing me. The largest group yet arrived a few weeks ago, and I was concerned about how I would avoid them. It's why I accepted Arl-Commander Mahariel's offer."

"You should have _said!_ "

"Yes, I should have," Fenris agreed bitterly. "It seems I've gotten him caught in the crossfire. _Hadriana_ kidnapped them. She is Danarius's apprentice, and an _accomplished_ blood mage in her own right."

Oh, Void.

"I've seen this done before," Fenris continued. "She's made him a blood thrall. It would be a mercy to kill him now."

"We're not going to kill him!" Alistair exclaimed. "We're going to fix him."

"I have never heard of such a thing."

"Yeah, well, blood mages wouldn't want to spread it around, would they? Of course it can be broken- oh Andraste's flaming _sword_ will one of you rogues get over here and tie Zevran up already!"

"We don't have any rope," Sigrun pointed out. "And it's _Zevran._ He'd just escape."

"I can put him to sleep," Anders offered. "But with it fighting blood magic, I don't know how long it will hold."

"Just do it," Alistair told him. "So long as he's out long enough to get him back to the estate and tie him up, we'll worry about the rest later."

Anders put him to sleep, and Alistair shouldered his shield with a little sigh of relief, massaging his arm in an attempt to get some feeling back in it.

"I'd say send Nathaniel back with him," Anders said. "But Nathaniel shouldn't do much for a while. And if we're going after a Magister, we'll need everyone we can get."

"Can Nathaniel walk on his own?"

"I'd rather he _not,_ but having him in a fight would be worse."

"All right," Alistair said. "Um- hm. Sod this, sod _everything-_ Mhequi, follow the Roads markings we put down back and don't let Nathaniel be stupid. Get Zevran tied up in Fenris's place and we'll be back with Theron and Sergeant Tabris."

 _Who are probably blood thralls as well,_ Anders thought darkly. And to think that the day had started off so well. What were they going to do if the Commander was a blood thrall, as well? How were you supposed to fix something like this? How were they going to explain this?

They waited for Mhequi to take Zevran and Nathaniel back up the tunnels before regrouping, now into a more battle-ready formation. Anders and Viktory moved forward, just behind Alistair, Fenris, and Fen, with orders to immediately go after Hadriana. They advanced slowly, much more cautious now, and Anders's stomach twisted at the thought of encountering an ambush in the form of the Commander, but they passed without incident until suddenly, around the next turn, they could hear metal on metal and jeering voices.

" _Tevene,"_ Fenris hissed. "They're having a duel- forcing someone to fight. Blood sport."

Well, this was it. Here they went-

"One of you give me a lyrium potion," Alistair said, and _what?_

"Captain!"

"I've fought a lot of blood mages and a lot of thralls but if you think, Warden Arend, that I am going anywhere _near_ a Tevinter blood Magister without the ability to smite her, then you are severely mistaken!" Alistair shot back. "I know the risks here and I know it's going to be awful afterwards but some things are worth it so one of you _give me a blighted potion!_ "

This was pure insanity, but Anders was not above admitting to himself that this was an instance where he'd actually feel a little _safer_ with a Templar around. He handed over one of his before Viktory could argue about it more.

Alistair downed it in one go and doubled over, hissing in- that wasn't pain, really, but it _had_ been a nasty shock to his system.

"Maferath's mercy lyrium potions really _are_ that strong. _Flames._ "

"Are you going to be all right?" Anders asked.

"Not in a couple of hours. But by then we'll be dead, enthralled, or well away from here, so-"

Alistair adjusted the grip on his shield, bringing it up a bit higher and more in front of him.

"-everyone ready? All together now-"

Anders took a deep breath and joined in the battle cry.

" _For the Grey Wardens!"_

* * *

She'd almost made it out. She might have, if she'd pushed a little harder, but she'd made the choice to go for _'permanently down'_ rather than _'down for now'_ so that she wouldn't have slavers getting back up and coming after her again, giving her more opponents to fight at once, but it had cost her minutes she could have used.

And now she was surrounded, the Magister Zevran had told her about standing outside the ring of slavers penning her in.

"I see I was right about _one thing,_ " she said. "You _are_ gladiator material."

She said something in Tevene, and the slavers expanded their ring some. It was enough to give her room to maneuver, but not enough for her to have space to rush between them.

"Darling, go test the girl. She needs to learn a lesson about trying to escape. Just don't kill her. You're both too valuable for such a waste."

Two slavers stepped apart, and the Arl-Commander walked into the ring. Kallian took a steadying breath- blood magic, all right. Fight the Arl-Commander, well, she'd have to try. What choice was there?

She took another look as the Arl-Commander squared up, because something was off about the movement of it- oh.

He tried to hit her with his shield, taking the initiative in an attempt to catch her off balance, but she stepped out of the way and swung down at his arm, hoping she wouldn't cause too much damage if it connected. Kallian had seen his face, and it held no trace of his usual calm self-assurance against an opponent. It was all fear, some despair, and his eyes were red from crying. That was not a frame of mind at all conducive to dueling, and she was going to take advantage of it and apologize later. He'd been ordered not to kill her, and while she wasn't going to try to kill _him,_ this was as big an edge as his clear reluctance to fight her. He might be under a compulsion, but Kallian was sure he could fight better than this.

They circled each other, and she had no idea if it was deliberate or not, but the Arl-Commander seemed to be taking _'learn a lesson'_ as license to attack offensively, and it was leaving big holes in his defense. Under other circumstances, she was certain they wouldn't be there; but right she took advantage of them, thwacking him heavily with the broad side of her blade as often as possible. It would bruise badly, but it was unlikely to break anything, not the way she was going about it. And if she rattled him enough, maybe-

His shield came up flat in front of him, and Kallian narrowed her eyes, trying to work it out. It shouldn't have stayed in this position for as long as it had, and wait she _could_ use this, if only they were in the right position-

The shield came down and his sword came up, and Kallian decided to take the chance. She caught the Arl-Commander's sword on her own instead of dodging and shoved forward, forcing him to step back out of her range. He was maybe two steps away from the edge of the ring, and sure enough the shield came up flat in front of him again.

Either this was deliberate or the Arl-Commander was too scared of what he'd do under compulsion to really fight. Kallian lunged towards him and hit the shield with her full weight, shoulder first, sword held over her other side. The Arl-Commander wasn't braced properly and he went sprawling, falling backwards into the slavers and taking a couple with him. Kallian made the swing she'd prepared before bowling the Arl-Commander over and her greatsword scythed out in an arc, taking out the slavers who were trying to fill the gap.

She jumped over the fallen humans and ran for the tunnel entrance.

" _For the Grey Wardens!"_

Never mind turn around!

The other Wardens rushed past her and magic was flying towards the Magister who was trying to get a barrier up in time and-

The Arl-Commadner was back on his feet and coming for her.

For a minute, Kallian tried to figure out why he was still fighting _her._ Surely there were more dangerous targets the Magister would want him to go for.

Well, wait- _obviously._ She hadn't ordered him to do that, and if he kept coming after _her_ then it kept him from fighting his Wardens.

She could give him this, Kallian decided, and went back on the offensive.

* * *

Sigrun wasn't totally certain what the battle plan for getting the Magister was, but before they could deal with her they had to get through her lackeys.

It was sadly apparent that these Tevenes hadn't fought a dwarf before; or if they had they'd fought someone like Oghren, the stereotypical example of a dwarven berserker. They just weren't used to guarding against knives at knee-height, and she was happy to show them why they should. She and Fen were throwing them off, which was good news for everyone else. Andreas and Lockhard were fighting together, deadly with three swords between them. Rhannur was off on his own, taking out archers. Anders and Viktory were holding down the Magister as Alistair and Fenris tried to plow a path through to her and fire that was fire!

No one had said anything about another mage, and Sigrun quickly checked Anders. He was still firing off spells at the Magister, but he kept glancing over at the other mage, obviously wondering if he could be spared to take the other woman out. As she looked, ice shot up in front of him and Viktory, who twisted to retaliate with a simple arcane bolt at yet another hidden mage, breaking off her attack on the Magister. Anders wouldn't be able to get away now.

"Fen," Sigrun said, finishing off her latest fight. "Get the one Anders was watching."

The mabari growled and pelted off. Sigrun went the other way, drawing on her best rogue stealth, and managed to surprise the mage with severed tendons behind the knees and knife in the back of the skull on his way down, which gave her a moment to breathe and reevaluate the fight.

Fen had gotten his mage as well and now had a slaver Rhannur had downed by the leg, trying to tear it off. Lockhard and Andreas were badly surrounded, but as she watched Alistair and Fenris reached the Magister. Alistair smote her, Fenris started glowing, and Anders brought fire down on a knot of slavers trying to tie up Lockhard's swords. Viktory was rushing forward with Rhannur, Alistair and Fenris together should be enough for the Magister, and-

Sergeant Tabris was fighting the Commander.

"She's got him under a compulsion!" the Sergeant yelled when she was Sigrun coming over. "She ordered him to fight me- teach me a lesson!"

Oh, Ancestors, they really _had_ lost the Commander. What was she supposed to tell Oghren? How were Alistair and Nathaniel and Anders going to deal with this?

Sigrun got behind the Commander and tried to trip him. It didn't quite work, and all three of them ended up tangled together, almost falling. Sergeant Tabris was quick enough to get out of it, and the Commander could match her elvhen reflexes, but there was still a second where he was distracted.

She used it to smack him in the small of the back with the pommel of one of her knives.

"Hey, Commander!" she yelled up at him. "Leave her alone; come and get _me!_ "

"Warden Sigrun-!"

The Commander turned to face her and Anders stepped up behind him, hand outstretched and glowing white-blue.

" _Sleep,"_ he ordered, and caught the Commander as he fell.

Sergeant Tabris let her sword drop, looking relieved.

"There are chains in the room we were in," she told them. "I don't know where the keys are, but Zevran got me out of mine. He's still in there."

"No, he's not," Anders told her. "The Magister made him a blood thrall. If I hadn't been there, Nathaniel would be dead."

"If Alistair didn't spar so much with Zevran, we'd _all_ be dead," Sigrun put in. "But we caught him and we're going to fix him."

"You can fix this?" Sergeant Tabris asked. Behind them, Fenris roared in fury and a staff clattered against the stone. That sounded like the end of that fight.

"Well, maybe," Sigrun said. "No one knows how yet, but we're going to figure it out!"

They just had to.

* * *

They were back at Fenris's estate, and Alistair wanted nothing more than to sit down and let the world go on without him for a while, but he still had an hour or two on the lyrium potion. There were things that needed to be handled before the Wardens were down their entire command structure, because Anders refused to let Nathaniel do anything and Theron and Zevran hadn't snapped out of the blood magic when Fenris had killed Hadriana. Alistair had been hoping they'd get lucky, but of _course_ not.

At least, under Fenris's direction, they'd located the keys for the chains, the vials of blood that were binding Theron and Zevran, and Hadriana's books on blood magic. Alistair had been all for smashing the vials and burning the books, but Fenris had stopped him.

"You _really_ think it is so simply to free a thrall?" he'd demanded. "It's been tried before. Smashing them does nothing but make things worse. The books might actually be useful."

Neither Viktory or Anders could read Tevene. Fenris couldn't read at all, apparently, so Alistair had told Andreas to read Hadriana's books out to Viktory. No one had been very happy about it, but blood magic had done this and they'd likely have to understand how it worked before they could do anything to get rid of it.

Anders would have been in on the book reading, but he was still watching over Nathaniel's healing, and Alistair also needed him for something else.

"Do you know what to do for lyrium withdrawal?"

"You know, they _really_ discouraged us from knowing anything about that in the Circles."

"Right," Alistair said. "Well, in an hour or two I'm going to have burned through all of it, and I took a lot, so it's going to be really bad. I'm going to go into cold sweats, I'll run a dangerously high fever and swing between hot and cold flashes. I might breathe badly; I'll definitely vomit a lot. I'll get shaky and twitchy and won't want to eat or drink anything. I'll be irrationally anxious and nervous. I might get paranoid and try to hurt you. Oh, and things might get bloody- I mean my piss, that's normal. The only things you can really do are keep me drinking- water when I'm hot and warm broth when I'm cold- and keep the fever from killing me. All this could be over by tomorrow morning, or it could go on for days."

Anders looked deeply perturbed.

"Does this happen often?"

"It happens to anyone who's taken lyrium and then stops," Alistair told him. "But eventually you can't take enough to hold off the effects, and this is how you die. _Slowly,_ and your mind goes with it. When people talk about Templars retiring, that's what they mean. Personally, I think Wardens get a better deal."

"We just get these blinding awful headaches-"

"Yeah, well, you mages are lucky that way. And there's a lot I'd give to know how the Voshai do what they do with lyrium and avoid all this."

Anders didn't want him to leave the estate, but Alistair had things to take care of. He still had to appoint Sigrun to temporary command before Anders would let him leave, and that cost him five minutes.

The Viscount couldn't see him when he went up to the Keep, so Alistair left a brief letter to the Seneschal to inform the Viscount that the Taint source had been found and contained, but that there'd been an Incident with a Magister as part of it and, consequently, the Wardens were down their leadership structure, and Sigrun and Anders were in charge until further notice. Also, they apologized for any difficulties they might end up causing Kirkwall with the Imperium, but they weren't actually sorry.

Then he dragged himself to the Chantry with the note they'd found in the stolen Circle books, and some of the books themselves. Alistair felt a little guilty about that, but Anders and the Wardens could really use the ones on healing.

Grand Cleric Elthina was not too busy to see him, even if her secretary, Mother Petrice, tried to stonewall him. In the end, he just pushed past her and went into the Cleric's study unnaounced.

"My sincere apologies, Your Reverence," he said. "But I haven't got much time. My name is Captain Alistair of Ferelden's Grey Wardens, and this morning we were involved in a fight with a necromantic blood mage and a bunch of demons. WE found these books smuggled out of the Kirkwall Circle's library-"

He put them on her desk.

"-and this letter to the blood mage from the one who provided the books. One of our mages, Warden Viktory Arend, grew up in this Circle, and identified the hand as First Enchanter Orsino's."

He handed over the letter. The Grand Cleric was staring at him.

"Warden-Captain, this is rightly the business of Knight-Commander Stannard-"

"Forgive me, Your Reverence, but I was a Templar recruit before I was a Warden. I know what lyrium abuse smells like and I can tell from clear across the city. There's some… deep concern regarding the mental state of your Templars here. So I brought this to you."

"This is highly irregular," Mother Petrice complained from behind him. She'd caught up.

"Against, apologies, but I'm on a short schedule," Alistair said. He could _feel_ they lyrium catching up to him and was he even going to make it back ot the estate? No, he wasn't. "Grand Cleric, I'm about to go into pretty severe lyrium withdrawal and I'm a bit worried I'm going to empty my stomach on your carpets, which would be a shame because they're very nice."

" _Lyrium withdrawal?"_

"Different blood mage," Alistair assured her. 'This afternoon. Took care of it. Tevinter Magister with slavers. Wasn't about to go up against her without a way to, excuse me, smite the shit out of her. It's been a _day._ "

"I'll get someone to take you back to wherever you're staying."

Alistair was pretty sure he managed to give directions before the withdrawal really hit, but he had no idea for certain. Everything was too awful to devote any energy to thinking.

* * *

Theron woke up for the second time in a row in chains.

It was dark, but there was a shuttered lantern somewhere behind him, so there was a little light. He wasn't on the floor this time, but on a cot, and was that good or bad because he was certain that Hadriana would only be nice to him if he'd done what she wanted but the last thing he remembered was fighting Kallian and the other Wardens had arrived and if they'd made off with him then why was he in chains again? And where were Zevran and Kallian?

"Sir?"

"Sigrun?"

"I've got some water if you want it, sir, and I'm supposed to go get Anders so he can check you out."

Theron realized that his hands were chained in front of him this time, and that those manacles weren't attached to the ones around his ankles. He could sit up on the cot and take the cup of water Sigrun handed him.

"Kallian?" he asked, as Sigrun got up to leave.

"She's fine, Commander."

"I- I shouldn't see her. The compulsion-"

"We figured, sir, I'll just tell her you woke up."

"And I'm sorry, I didn't want to-"

"Sir," Sigrun said. "Theron. We all know that. It's okay."

It didn't _feel_ okay, being left alone in this dark room, chained up and with the compulsions still weighing on his mind, but he tried to reason with himself. The compulsion to fight Kallian was more than enough to warrant this, and if Anders couldn't fix this when he came down here, well- it was the perfect inverse of their position just yesterday, or maybe it was two days ago now. If Anders couldn't save him from himself, then Theron would be the one asking for death.

Sigrun came back with Anders, who unshuttered the lantern to get more light and started checking him over.

"Can you fix the compulsion?" Theron asked, tense with nerves and fear. At least if he had to die, he'd found Sabrae again.

"We're working on it," Anders told him, and yawned hugely. "We found her books. Andreas and Viktory are going through them."

"You should sleep," Theron said. "But not you?"

"Now that you've woken up, I _can_ sleep. I've been watching Nathaniel to make sure he doesn't relapse and getting Alistair through his withdrawal and I checked Zevran when he woke up. I was just waiting on you."

Zevran, Creators no. If they didn't fix this he'd have to leave _Zevran_ behind. It would break him.

"Nathaniel and Alistair?" he asked. He needed a distraction.

Anders grimaced.

"Alistair took a lyrium potion so he could go all righteous wrath of the Templars on the Magister. It was a _stupid_ decision, but…"

"It really helped."

"It did," Anders reluctantly agreed. "I hate that he did it, but it did. I'm pretty sure he'll live through the withdrawal, thought. It's just a matter of time."

"And Nathaniel?"

Anders shifted uncomfortably.

"Anders, what _happened_ to him?"

If Hadriana had gotten to _him,_ too-

"Zevran helped Kallian escape," Anders told him. He wasn't making eye contact any longer. "The Magister decided to retaliate by making him a true blood thrall, not just leaving him with compulsions. She ordered him to kill us, and he got Nathaniel through the lungs before Alistair got him against a wall. If I hadn't been right there right away, Nathaniel would be dead right now. Zevran's in the next room over. Kallian's watching him because she's the one he _didn't_ react to being in the room with."

She'd taken Zevran. She'd stolen his _mind,_ enslaved him in a way that nothing else could; and only if he'd been strong enough able to fight if he hadn't given her Zevran's blood in the first place-

"You have to save him, Anders. You _have_ to heal him-"

"This isn't something healing can fix," Anders said, tone gentle. "We're working on it, I _promise._ "

"I- I have to see him. I _have_ to."

Anders and Sigrun exchanged a look.

"If I let you out, will you attack anyone?" Anders asked.

"Only Kallian," Theron said. "And I can- I think I have to _see_ her, I'm not feeling urged to go hunt her down."

"I'll ask Kallian to head upstairs for a little bit," Sigrun volunteered, and Anders unlocked him. It was a relief to be out of his physical chains, but it only made the mental ones all the more pressing.

And _Zevran-_ if they couldn't fix the blood compulsion then they'd _both_ have to be killed and at least they wouldn't have to live without each other but Zevran wouldn't be dying himself and he didn't _deserve_ any of this, he should have had a better life, they should have had more time _together,_ Creators please-

Sigrun knocked on the door and told them Kallian was gone. Anders led him out, and both of them stood aside, out of the sight of the door, as Theron went into the other room.

Zevran was much more heavily chained. The other Wardens had kept the connecting chain between hands and feet, and the chain joining his wrist manacles was locked around an iron stand for big, heavy wine barrels, so he couldn't move much. There was a platter with water and soup, but it looked untouched. Zevran was awake, sitting on a chair that had been provided, but looking at nothing.

He hadn't reacted to Theron coming in, and suddenly he understood what Anders had meant, saying that Kallian was the only one Zevran hadn't reacted to.

"Zevran?" Theron tried anyway. It got no reaction, and he walked up to him, touched his face in the soft, gentle way he knew Zevran always melted into.

Still nothing.

"Satheraan?" he said quietly. " _Vhenan_? Please. I'm here. I'm, I'm _sorry_ I couldn't- I was so _scared_ when she came in I should have tried to do something before she- _please, 'ma'len_ , look at me."

He didn't. Theron got down on the ground and rested his head on Zevran's knees.

"In the days of old Arlathan," Theron began, because Zevran always liked to hear Dalish stories. "When the Creators walked in this world and in our dreams, and the _El'vhen_ outlived the stars, the Hahren who planted the great maples and willows of the forests of Thedas sat beneath the winter-bare branches on the bank of a frozen brook and looked up into the clear night sky. She asked for Falon'din to guide her…"


	11. Chapter 11

The estate was too quiet the next morning. The Wardens had given in without being asked and decided that the Arl-Commander could keep watch on Zevran, since it wasn't like he was going to leave his side, anyway.

That meant that Kallian was free of assigned duties, so she went looking for something to do. First she helped Lady Howe with breakfast, and after with unpacking some of their bags and boxes, since their return to Amaranthine had been delayed yet _again._ She went up to the top floor and checked on Anders and Warden-Constable Howe and Captain Alistair. The Captain was still wracked with fever and shakes, but Anders had gotten up with the dawn and was getting water and broth into him again.

"We Wardens are stubborn sodding blighters, Sergeant!" Anders told her cheerfully when she expressed concern about the Captain's condition. In her experience, if you got sick like that, you died. His cheer didn't actually reassure her any. It sounded manic, like too much alcohol or too little sleep. "We'd never survive otherwise!"

Kallian spent the rest of the morning helping him heat broth and steep fever-reducing herbs in hot water, which was then left over ice to cool. Lyrium withdrawal, Anders said, turned out not to respond well to magical healing.

By late lunchtime Constable Howe had bullied the healer into letting him out bed, and Kallian was assigned to escort him down to the kitchen to eat something. Lady Howe sent her back upstairs with food for Wardens Arend and Kasteros, who had woken up and gone immediately to the Magister's books.

"Anything?" Kallian asked hopefully, when her arrival with food broke their single-minded concentration.

"It doesn't make sense," Warden Arend scowled. "It just doesn't- there's some fundamental theory we're still missing, this shouldn't be this hard!"

That sounded bad, and she retreated to Anders's sickroom to update him on the progress. He wasn't happy to hear it, either.

"Could you go check- no, you can't go near him. Go ask Sigrun or somebody to ask Theron if he's gotten Zevran to eat or drink something."

The four remaining Wardens were attacking the rest of the uncleaned rooms.

"Stupid," Warden Mhequi pronounced, rattling the handle of one of the many fake doors in this estate.

"You know what Fenris said," Warden Kondrat told her. "It's all about _looking_ like you have the money for all these rooms."

"Stupid."

"Well, yes."

The Arl-Commander hadn't gotten Zevran to eat or drink anything, and Warden Kondrat also reported that neither of them had slept. When Kallian told Anders this, he glared at the floor and told her to: "Hold this cold compress, I have to go make people care about their health."

He was gone for a good twenty minutes.

"Theron's sleeping in his usual room down the hall. You're up for Zevran-watching again. He _really_ needs to have some water."

She tried, she did; but the blood thrall thing was creepy and she couldn't even spoon water into him like she could have an invalid- like Anders had resorted to a couple of times with the Captain- because he wouldn't swallow. It wasn't in his orders.

Dinner came, and Warden Kondrat told her to go take a walk or something. The Arl-Commander was awake again and wanted to come down, and Wardens Mhequi and Nastasas had forcibly taken over for Anders, who'd fallen asleep over his dinner.

"Interested in a spar?" Warden Brant asked when she came up from the cellar. Kallian decided she was, because she didn't have anything else to do and she was interested in properly seeing how one fought with two swords at once.

They went for maybe an hour, and were ready for more food by then.

"Thank you, Warden Brant," she said when he called the spar. She hadn't thought she'd feel so much better once it was over, but here she was.

"You can call me Lockhard, you know," he told her. "You can call all of us by our names. We've been living together for a week and a half, and we've fought together. And you saved the Warden-Commander and Zevran."

No she hadn't.

"No I didn't," Kallian said. "He's- Zevran's _worse,_ because he helped me."

"You took out some of the slavers before we even got there," Lockhard said. "Then you kept them distracted while we snuck up, so we were able to rush them by surprise; _and_ you kept the Warden-Commander busy. It would have been a lot harder fight if you hadn't done that, and maybe we would have actually lost somebody. But instead we've got mages who didn't pass out at the end of the fight so they're able to help _now,_ and enough people who aren't on bed rest to take care of the ones who really need it."

"Maybe," Kallian said doubtfully.

"Definitely," Lockhard countered. "Come on, I'll show you what Ander can do with plain bread."

As it turned out, the Anderfels could do a _lot_ with plain bread, and most of it was pretty good, and filling. She went to bed with a full stomach, if not an abundance of hope about what the next day would bring.

* * *

It was late afternoon sometime when Alistair came back to consciousness.

"Feeling better?"

"No," he moaned. "Ugh. Close the curtains?"

Anders did, and the dim room was _much_ better.

"Well, your fever broke a few hours ago, so you're not going to die."

"Great," Alistair said. "Maybe if you say it again, I'll stop feeling like I want to."

"You're going to have to live with for a while."

"I can tell."

"However- it's been three days and nothing has exploded, fallen into the Waking Sea, caught on fire, or started a war."

"Even better."

Three days was a pretty good period for lyrium withdrawal.

"Don't ever let me do that again," he ordered Anders.

"Oh, I like how you think I hadn't already decided to freeze you to the ceiling the next time you suggested it," Anders retorted. "Don't _ever_ take lyrium again. I'd say _'I can't believe the Chantry would do such a thing!'_ , but, you know- Circles, Exalted Marches, Orlesian politics. What's addicting hundreds of thousands of people over nine Ages to lyrium and totally destroying them in the process on top of that?"

"Standard operating procedure."

Glassware clinked out of his field of vision- Anders was cleaning up.

"Do they at least _tell you_ what you're getting into?"

"Oh, sure," Alistair said. "But you don't really believe it until you live it, and even then a lot of the younger Templars don't care. They think having magic powers is exciting. And the older ones don't like to think about it. They get all stern and un-fun because they know they're about to die horribly. I always dreaded that part."

"Right, because it's not like Wardens don't all die horribly."

"Look, I've lived through quitting lyrium- which is a _lot_ worse than just withdrawal from a one-time dose, even if _was_ an overdose- and a whole Blight. Darkspawn are better. You can kill them, and the Deep Roads is much more dignified death. Nobody calls dead Templars _'heroes'_ ; and they certainly don't let them commit suicide-by-hordes-of-enemies before they lose their minds."

Anders made him sit up and have some broth.

"The _whole_ bowl."

"No vegetables?"

"If you can keep this down. And bread too."

Alistair watched him finish cleaning up. Anders got to the end, and then just stood there, staring at some empty bottles he was holding.

"They shouldn't do it," he said abruptly. "It's not right."

"Excuse me?"

"Templars," Anders explained. "With the lyrium. Isn't ruining mages' lives enough, without talking up the glory of the Chantry and Andrasteans' sacred duty and all that dreck, and pulling in regular people?"

"Uh, you know," Alistair said. "They _do_ volunteer for it. Mostly."

"' _Mostly'_ isn't good enough!" Anders told him. "They shouldn't hurt people like that!"

"The powers _are_ pretty useful-"

"And mages can't cleanse an area of magic or put down debilitating field effects? There's no excuse for-"

He gestured angrily at the room, encompassing the entire process of recovery and the effects Alistair would live with until he died.

"-all this!"

"Well, I'm glad you think so?" Alistair said. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond to this. "Thanks? For being outraged on my behalf?"

Anders sighed and crossed his arms.

"No problem. Don't mention it."

"How is everyone else doing?"

"Finish your food first."

Alistair couldn't decide if that was foreboding or not, so he finished it as quickly as he could. It wasn't very fast, not for a Warden, but he was still feeling nauseous.

"I let Nathaniel out of bed yesterday," Anders said. "He's fine to walk around for a little bit, but I'm not going to clear him for regular duties until the end of the week. I want to be _absolutely_ sure that his lungs are all right, he needs them healthy. The Commander woke up, and- well, he's not _'all right'_ , but so long as Kallian isn't in his line of sight the blood compulsions are ignorable. He spends almost all of his time with Zevran. _He's_ actually getting worse, because it turns out thralls don't drink or eat or sleep unless ordered!"

Alistair hadn't known that, but suddenly blood mages' propensity towards kidnapping and actively recruiting followers made a lot more sense.

"How long can he live like that?"

"It's _'three minutes without breathing, three days without water, three weeks without food'_ ," Anders said. "Today is day three. It can be more or less depending on circumstances, but…"

That was bad.

"Viktory and Andreas-"

"There's some fundamental theory that isn't in those books. They're not meant to be teaching guides. They assume a basic knowledge."

"So we'd have to ask a blood mage," Alistair said, and started to get out of bed. "All right then. I should go-"

" _What do you think you're doing!_ Stop that! Stop right now! You're not fit to get up!"

Alistair wanted to argue that, but he'd gotten stuck. It hurt too much to continue to get up, but moving to lay back down also sounded like a world full of pain. He let Anders sit him back up against the pillows.

"I should talk to Theron," he told Anders. "About what to do."

"Then _I'll_ go get him."

* * *

For Kallian, the second and third days after the Magister passed much like the first, except that after lunch on the third day she realized that she hadn't seen Fenris in half a week, and went looking for him.

She found him in a different part of the cellar from where they were keeping Zevran, down by the wine racks.

"Are you drunk?" she asked, because it smelled like it; or maybe this was just what wine cellars smelled like.

"No," Fenris growled. He sounded pissed about it, but she wasn't sure if it was because she'd implied that she thought he was drunk; or because he wasn't and wanted to be.

"There are better ways to handle your problems."

"Hn."

Kallian sat down with him.

"Are you drinking it straight from the bottle?"

"Why not?"

"Because we have cups, and then you could share."

Fenris waved a hand at all the bottles on the extensive racks, a silent invitation.

"You know what I mean," Kallian told him.

"Perhaps I don't wish for company."

"Perhaps _I_ don't wish for you to drink yourself to death alone in the cellar of your own house."

He scowled at her.

"I would _not._ "

"Good," she said. "I've seen it happen in the alienage. People say it's a better death than hanging or slitting your wrists, but I'm not convinced. It takes so long. Jumping off a roof is messy and nasty for the people left behind, but so long as you do it off one of the nobles' estates and not your own roof, you're pretty assuredly dead. And even if it's not instantaneous the guards will probably put you out of misery right away. Or the healer they get for you will."

He'd stopped scowling, but this odd look he was giving her wasn't necessarily better.

"Why are we talking about this?"

"Because talking about things can be good for you," Kallian told him. "Better than getting drunk. I've known a lot of people who killed themselves after what humans did to them, and now the only ones I've got left are my father, one of my cousins, and my cousin-in-law, and _she_ lives with the Dalish now. I can't stand to live in the same city I grew up in, so I haven't seen my cousin or my father in-"

How long _had_ it been?

"-five years. But we write and I send money back, so that's something."

"And how will _they_ feel, knowing how close you came to being a slave of the Imperium?"

"Probably not well," Kallian said. "We had people from our alienage kidnapped into slavery during the Blight. But it might finally get them to leave Denerim and come live in Amaranthine. It would be better for all of us."

Fenris drank more wine.

"Hadriana told me I have a sister," he said. "She said her name is Varania, and she lives free in Qarinus in the employ of Magister Ahriman."

"That's nice."

His expression went thunderous.

"I don't _trust her!_ What purpose does it serve her to say something like that!"

"I don't know," Kallian said after a moment of thinking about it. "Maybe it's the truth."

"Magisters _lie._ It's what they do."

"Well, are going to go to Qarinus and look for her?"

"Of course not," Fenris snorted. "It's a trap."

She shrugged.

"Then maybe stop thinking about it."

He glared at her.

"Yeah, I know it's not that easy. But if you're not going to go you shouldn't tear yourself up thinking about it. If she's real and she's free, you being a runaway slave would complicate her life, right?"

"It would," Fenris said. "And if she harbored me-"

His smile was bitter with realization.

"-even if she just _talked_ to me, and didn't turn me in, that would be grounds enough to enslave her again."

"It's really bad in Tevinter, isn't it?"

"Very," Fenris said. "I loathe it. I will never go back."

"I kind of feel the same way about Denerim," Kallian offered. "Except most of the city doesn't hold bad memories. It's just- a couple of places. And I don't think I could stand to live in the alienage again. Or _any_ alienage. Not now that I've lived under the Arl-Commander and served in the Vigil's Guard. I hated having to live in one before, but now…"

She let it trail off. She was pretty sure Fenris understood.

He offered her a new bottle of wine.

"Hadriana would not have been able to keep you," he told her as she pried the cork out. "You have too much of Arlathan in you. It's the same reason why she put a blood compulsion on Arl-Commander Mahariel. Dalish kill themselves rather than be enslaved, or they try to escape until the Magisters kill them out of sheer frustration. Elves from southern alienages are much easier to handle. And easier to catch."

He paused.

"I have… admired them," Fenris admitted. "The few Dalish I remember seeing in Tevinter. They never let themselves be broken. At first I thought they were foolish, but then _I_ escaped. I understand now."

"Fenris?" Kallian asked hesitantly. "Is the Arl-Commander going to be okay?"

He sighed and let his head tip back against the wine racks, eyes closed.

"I don't know."

"Can they really break the compulsions, and the thralldom?"

Fenris opened one eye enough to look at her.

"They insist on doing the impossible," he told her. "But I believe it is more of an unwillingness to leave hope behind rather than any true chance of success. In the Imperium, it's known that you can't break blood magic once it's been put on someone. It's why the Magisters use it to enslave _'lesser mages'_ \- elves with magic."

"Oh," Kallian said quietly. "I'd- wondered, how the Tevenes dealt with that."

"I told Captain Alistair it would be a mercy to give Zevran his death," Fenris said. "He didn't want to listen, but blood thralls are pitiful creatures. Any man who- the way Arl-Commander Mahariel spoke of him to his clan, I believe that Zevran would thank us for it, if he could. As for Arl-Commander Mahariel… if his only compulsion is to fight you, he may learn to live with it, so long as you are not around."

"I'd rather not quit my job," Kallian told him. "But if it means he gets to go home, and be arl and make Amaranthine the place it is, I'll gladly go somewhere else."

"But," Fenris asked. "Would he want to, if he couldn't have Zevran?"

Kallian thought about the way he'd spent the last days locked in with him, and thought the answer was probably _'no'_.

* * *

"He just _sits_ there, Alistair. It's like-"

He kept thinking he wouldn't be able to cry anymore, after all the times he had already, but Theron kept finding that he had more tears.

"-it's like he's dead already."

"I'm sorry, Theron," Alistair told him. "This never should have happened."

No, it shouldn't have.

"Fenris told me we should kill him, because you can't break a thralldom. I don't want to believe it, but Viktory and Andreas aren't getting anywhere. And Anders says that he's going to die _anyway,_ because we can't make him drink any water."

Oh, how he knew that. He'd spent hours trying to change that, all in vain.

"It would be a slow death, Theron. I don't really want to, but- we _could_ make it fast."

"No. No. I won't- I can't kill him."

"No one would make you do it," Alistair said gently.

Like that would make any difference. He'd still be letting it happen.

"But I'd still _know._ "

"Then we've only got one other option, and I hate to suggest it," Alistair told him. "It's always been the one rule we stick with, when we let everything else go. But we _do_ know a blood mage who won't try to kill us. Or, well- _you_ know her."

"She doesn't need that kind of encouragement," Theron protested, but it sounded weak even to him. To get Zevran back, to be rid of his own compulsions-

"Theron, I think it's come down to _'sanction blood magic'_ or _'kill Zevran'_."

"And me."

Alistair looked at him in alarm.

"That's awfully drastic, don't you think! All you've got is _'fight Kallian'_ \- you've even been forbidden from killing her. But Zevran _would_ kill all of us."

"I meant to apologize," Theron told him. "You agreed to saving Anders, and we did. But I wouldn't think that we could have saved Connor Guerrin. But we could have, couldn't we?"

Alistair sighed.

"I'm not the one who could use that apology. And you'd be better off not bringing it up to his parents."

"I know."

"You've been guilty about that all these years?"

"No," Theron admitted. "Only since Anders. And I should apologize again for leaving Amaranthine to Caron and making you run around after me for six months. When we found Anders again, I understood how you could be so upset about it still."

" _That_ apology, I'll accept. And about _time,_ too."

"But yes," Theron said. "Killing me too."

" _Absolutely not,"_ Alistair said. "Theron, you're _Arl-Commander._ Kallian can get a new job. _You_ can't. Not turning her out isn't _nearly_ good enough of a reason to _kill you._ Stop being self-sacrificing and try out the Dalish pragmatism."

 _But you should,_ Theron didn't say, because Alistair wasn't Dalish and didn't understand. If you got caught by slavers, you escaped, or you did the honorable thing and killed yourself, so you weren't disgracing your people. He hadn't escaped- he hadn't even _tried,_ when Zevran had found his way around the compulsions- and the blood magic was keeping him from making up for what he'd done. Even if no one else saw it, it was still there, and he'd never be rid of it.

"If we don't kill him," he continued. "Then it's blood magic, or we just… sit here and watch. And I don't want to put that on you, Theron, I _really_ don't. I just don't know if it's as much as how much I _really_ don't want to resort to blood magic. It's just- it's you and Zevran. And Merrill's your sister. She's still Dalish enough to do things for her clan, right?"

"She will always be Dalish," Theron said, because it was true. "But I'm not sure she'd do anything for Sabrae. For me, she might."

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Whatever we do, Theron," Alistair eventually said. "We'd better both agree on it, because otherwise this'll get nasty between us and fester, and- we're friends."

"Family," Theron corrected. "Brothers, in arms and by choice."

"Yeah," he agreed, and the little smile on his lips was worth a lot in a time like this. "And I don't want to ruin that."

"I won't kill Zevran," Theron said again.

"All right. But does watching him die because we could have gone to Merrill, and didn't, count as killing him?"

Did it? Did it count as having a choice when the only other thing to do was a bad decision? But was it a bad decision, when it was just Merrill, and no one else would be hurt?

' _No blood magic'_ was one of the only rules they could claim to have never broken. In its own way, that was a comfort, because if you could say that there were some things you just didn't do and could _prove_ it, then you always knew where you stood.

But.

"I don't want Zevran to die," Theron said, defeated.

Alistair took a deep breath.

"Okay then," he said. "We're doing this."

* * *

Anders was standing outside of Hawke's estate because he hadn't let Alistair come, and the Commander was in no state to do much besides hold himself together. He let himself in the usual way- without knocking- and went looking for Merrill.

"How considerate of you to _finally_ show up," Aveline said icily from the front hall balcony. "It's been _three days,_ Anders-"

"We've had our _own_ problems, Vallen," he shot back. "Where's Merrill?"

"In with Hawke. And you'd _better_ say hello to Leandra first."

He did, because finding Leandra would give Aveline time to extract Merrill from Hawke. Anders wasn't about to try that himself.

Leandra seemed to have recovered from her murder scare. Anders got the impression, talking to her, that no one had told her the whole truth of the incident.

"I'm just so relieved it wasn't someone coming for Marian," she confided in him. "I can't lose another child."

That reminded him.

"Leandra," he told her. "You'd better find a way to get Bethany out of the Gallows. We found evidence that says the First Enchanter is a blood mage. You don't want her in there when this blows up."

"The _First Enchanter?_ "

"Even if it's not true, if Meredith hears about it, she won't listen to reason."

"Malcolm's old route might still be open," Leandra said. "But they'd know it was us."

"They can accuse all they want, but if they don't find her here, they can't touch you," Anders said. "Get her out- talk to the Mage Underground. Hawke knows how. Send her to Amaranthine. I'll get her set up somewhere safe."

"Andraste's blessings on you, Anders; _thank_ you. I don't know what this city will come to without you caring for people all over it."

He shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal.

"Kirkwall's still got your daughter. She cares plenty."

"But in a different way," Leandra said. "I mean it, Anders. I won't be the same without you."

"I'll write?"

"Of course you will. I expect nothing less. Every two weeks, but I can forgive a month."

"Yes, Leandra."

"And use some of your leave to come visit."

It was good to hear her nagging again. He could remember his own mother, but this was almost better.

"Yes, Leandra."

"Anders?" he heard Merrill call, and excused himself. They met back in the front hallway.

"What did you want to talk about? If you're hoping to make up with Marian, you really should just talk to her-"

"I don't _want_ to talk to you," Anders told her. "I _have_ to talk to you. The Wardens need a blood mage, Merrill."

She blinked at him in surprise.

" _Theron_ would never-"

"When we got back from saving Leandra the Commander and Zevran and Kallian were gone and we found out that some Tevene slavers with a Magister had grabbed them and we got them back but the Magister had decided that the only way to keep the Commander and Zevran in line was blood magic. The Commander's got compulsions and Zevran's a thrall and we've been trying to figure out how to get rid of it from the Magister's books but we don't _get it,_ because none of us are blood mages!"

"He _still_ would never," Merrill said, though she sounded less certain.

"He is," Anders said. "It's come down to asking you for help, or killing Zevran, which may as well be the same thing as killing the Commander. He _needs_ you, Merrill. Even if you don't come, Zevran will die. Blood thralldom doesn't leave room for eating or drinking or sleeping, and magical healing won't keep him going forever. I know you know that."

"I never learned anything about how to _control_ people."

"I told you, we've got the books, and someone who reads Tevene. _Please,_ Merrill. I hate being here and I know the Commander hates asking, but he's found his breaking point."

She titled her head- her usual thinking pose.

"Is the Magister dead?" she asked.

"Of course!"

"Good," Merrill said. "I'll come."

* * *

It wasn't real to her until she saw Theron, and then it was too real. She'd seen him happy, she'd seen him uncomfortable, she'd seemed him worried, she'd seen him thoughtful and melancholy. She'd seen him arguing with Marethari and the Warden to stay with the clan, and heartbroken as he was forced to leave, and distant and at ease and sure of himself in Warden's armor. But she'd never seen him hopeless and half-grieving, huddled in on himself, and this wasn't how he was supposed to be.

Merrill threw herself at Theron, and hugged him even tighter when he hesitated to hug back.

"Theron, talk to me."

"Don't tell them," he begged. "Don't tell Marethari, don't tell the clan- I didn't escape I didn't _fight_ they had to come rescue me-"

"They can do that," Merrill told him. "They aren't Dalish. They don't have to protect themselves the same way."

"She took my blood and she said- she told me I wasn't allowed to try to escape, I wasn't allowed to fight them, I wasn't allowed to kill myself-"

"Oh, _Theron-_ Theron, it's all right."

"No it _isn't;_ it isn't I didn't fight I was too _scared_ I broke the Oath and now Zevran-"

"You can't fight blood compulsions," Merrill told him firmly, pulling back to look him in the eyes. " _Theron._ You didn't submit. You _didn't._ You didn't want to do what she made you do."

"That doesn't count," he said, words full of shame and misery.

"Yes it does," she said. "Who was First here, me or you?"

"You," Theron said. "But I learned the stories. How you're _supposed_ to do things."

"They're important," Merrill agreed. "But if we were all acted like the heroes in the stories, then would there be anyone left alive? You didn't break the Oath of the Dales, Theron. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You didn't submit, and you came home. That's more than most manage, and even more than was asked of you."

He leaned forward and buried his face in the join of her neck and shoulder. Merrill took his hands and squeezed them comfortingly.

"It's true, _isa'ma'lin_."

"It doesn't _feel_ like it."

"And that's what they want to you to think. They _want_ you to be too ashamed to come home, so you never try to run."

"I- she made me give her Zevran's blood, and now he's-"

"And _now_ you're trying to save him," Merrill cut him off. "Theron, stop this. It isn't your fault."

"He's _dying,_ " Theron said. "It's like he's dead already, the way he is. Merrill, he's _'ma'sal'shiral_ , what am I supposed to do if-"

"Plant a tree," she told him. "The biggest, prettiest, bestest tree you can think of, and water it and care for it and make sure everyone knows who it's for. Make sure people know his story, so he isn't forgotten."

"It won't be the same."

"It never is, Theron," she said sadly, thinking of the trees by their old camp Sabrae had planted for him and Tamlen before Marethari had led them north. She had no idea if they'd survived the Blight or not. "But it's what we have. And would he like a Dalish burial?"

"I think he really would."

"Then it'll be your last gift to him, too. Falon'din will make sure he knows. And then when _you_ die, you can go adventure in the Beyond together."

He _almost_ laughed.

"Being a Warden is adventure enough," Theron told her. "And we don't get to retire."

"Then you can stay in one place for a little bit," Merrill said. "Maybe you can greet the newly-dead. It could be like a tavern!"

"The Beyond doesn't have taverns, Merrill."

"Well it _could._ You don't know. You get thirsty wandering around all the time, I bet everyone would appreciate it and then you'd get to hear _all_ the stories."

"I've missed you," he said after a second. "I didn't say that before. I'm sorry. I love you."

"I knew, Theron. I love you too. Even if you don't like my choices and I don't like your job."

He raised his head again.

"You don't like my job?"

"It took you from us," Merrill told him. "I'll never like it. I don't care that it's the Grey Wardens and we need them. But I guess if it hadn't we would have gotten married and then we wouldn't have ever met Zevran or Marian."

"Merrill," Theron said. "How important is she to you?"

"I live in her _house._ "

" _Oh,"_ he said, and then paused. "Well, I suppose Zevran lives in mine, too. Even if a lot of other people do as well."

"And you didn't invite me to the wedding!" she gently teased. "You're a bad brother."

Now, he managed a smile.

"You didn't invite me to yours, either."

Merrill swung their joined hands, knocking their fingers together lightly.

"That's because it hasn't happened."

"You'll have to fix that."

"So do you," she told him, and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm going to go look at these books, Theron, and then I _will_ figure out a way to give him back to you."

* * *

The waiting was awful. He spent it with Zevran, still trying to get him to drink something- _anything,_ it was day three and he couldn't- and not succeeding. He told more stories, traditional Dalish ones and ones he'd heard from humans, stories about Sabrae and his life with Merrill and Tamlen. He sang the stories and poems that couldn't be recited, and went so far as to go through the long prayers for the Holy Days. If Zevran couldn't hear him, maybe the Creators could.

Dinner came and went, and Delilah Howe came down to facilitate the exchange of watch between him and Kallian.

"Your sister is very funny," she remarked. "And sweet. I'm glad you found your family again, too."

He had been happy about it, but now he felt like he was losing the most important part of it. Once he'd eaten enough to satisfy everyone else, he went up to the room Viktory and Andreas and Merrill were still using. Fenris was there too, to his surprise.

"These aren't _nice_ books, Theron," Merrill told him, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "They're _awful._ Why would people do this?"

"Power," Fenris said. "They like how it feels to hurt other people."

"We haven't figured it out yet, Commander," Viktory said apologetically. "But we're going to try again tomorrow. Fenris has been really helpful. Now we know what the different blood glyphs do. That was important."

"You're all right with this?" Theron asked him once Merrill had left to go sleep, with a promise to come back first thing after dawn. The lines of tension all through his body screamed _'no!'_ but Fenris's words were:

"Hadriana was after me."

"You shouldn't be uncomfortable in your own house."

"I'm helping," Fenris said, and that was the end of the conversation.

Theron slept because Anders would yell at him, and Alistair and Nathaniel and Sigrun would be sad, if he didn't.

It was Nathaniel who shook him awake a half-hour after dawn.

"Anders said not wake you until Merrill came," he said, face drawn with worry and stress. "But Zevran passed out a few hours ago. Anders is in there now. He said parts of his body just quit working, because he doesn't have any water left and even blood magic can only go so far-"

Theron was out of bed and running for the cellar in an instant, only stopping at the end of the hallway when something occurred to him.

"Kallian?"

"With Fenris, they're back to bonding over big swords and how awful humans are. Go through the kitchen."

Anders was deep into his healing magic when Theron reached the room, enough so that Alistair had managed to escape from his bed to take the watch chair without arousing the healer's ire, or attention.

"Theron," Alistair said, grabbing his arm when he tried to go to where Anders had laid Zevran out on the floor. "You'll just be in the way. Zevran will be fine. Anders is really good, you know that."

"But he can't make him drink," Theron said. "And he can't make him eat. And you can't run a body on magic."

This was even worse than he'd imagined. If he hadn't agreed yesterday to go to Merrill, he would be running for Hawke's estate right now, void take all the times he'd refused blood magic before. Zevran was dying on the floor in front of him and the last thing said between them was Zevran trying to tell him that it was _okay_ that Theron had been handing him over to a blood mage.

 _Please let him stay,_ he begged Sylaise silently; and then Falon'din: _If he has to die, find him quickly._

"Yes, it isn't fixing the problem," he heard Merrill say from the hallway. "But there's no more _time._ "

She walked in with one of the books and the vials of blood. The vials and book went down on the table with the water pitcher and lantern, and she flipped the pages open to a piece of string marking a particular passage.

"This isn't any different than the Magister!" Viktory protested from the doorway.

"Yes it is," Merrill told her, calm and composed. "I'm not trying to hurt him."

She drew her knife and cut off the wax seal that held the cork in Zevran's vial, then pried the cork itself out. She put a new one in, and the old one and the wax were wrapped in a piece of paper, dropped on the floor, and burnt to ash in a matter of seconds.

Merrill took a close look at the page she had open, then cut a finger. She used the candle in the lantern to seal the new cork in, mixing it with a few drops of her own blood, and slammed a small, many-lined glyph of pure magic into the cooling wax. She inspected it carefully, comparing it to something in the book, and apparently deemed it good enough.

"Can Anders come out of that without causing a problem?" she asked. "I don't want to mix magics. They can react badly."

Viktory glared at her, but roused Anders from his trance.

"Quickly," he ordered, leaning against Viktory's legs, and took the opportunity to take a lyrium potion. "In a couple of minutes-"

" _Par_ ," Merrill said, carefully reading out the Tevene. " _E nunc tus magister_!"

Magic glowed around the vial, purple.

"Drink!" she ordered Zevran in Trade, and then grabbed the pitcher of water. "Anders-"

They got water in his mouth and Alistair was good brother and let Theron crush his hand while Anders gently felt around Zevran's throat. He saw the moment when the healer's shoulders jumped.

"He swallowed!"

 _Oh._

"Merrill I have to-"

"I know how to give water Anders, just make sure he lives long enough for it to-"

"See?" Alistair told Theron, as he tried to hold the sobs in with both hands, and helped him sink to the floor because Theron's knees would not work. "I told you. It's going to be all right; he's going to make it-"


	12. Chapter 12

The wind off the bay was warm and heavy with salt. The summer rains had come to the desert late and heavy this year, and the wreaths and bouquets and falling tresses of the Flower Festival were going past their prime, even as colorful as they still were days after plucking and arranging, and the city was starting to fill with the sweet wet smell of rotting blooms. The adobe roof below him was warm against his back with residual heat from the daytime sun, and night sky overhead was dark in the new moon and brilliantly clear. The stars made pictures of griffins and owls and prowling bears, and a dragon roared from the top of a high tower over the sea.

"Rinna," Zevran said, still staring at stars. There was a certain curve to them, lines he was sure he would know as well as the feel of his own body if only- if only something. "I think there's something wrong with me."

She chuckled- a warm, bright sound, currently thick with Tevinter wine.

"Wrong with you?" she asked, rolling over to trace the lines of his chest with a finger. "The only thing wrong here is that it's been _weeks_ since we got a good contract. We'll find some pretty thing for you distract soon, Zevran."

His name sounded strange in her mouth. The wine made the _'z'_ hiss and the _'v'_ too soft and the vowels distinctly foreign- _Safraaaaaaahn…._

Had he heard that before?

Taliesin stole a deep, distracting kiss.

"I'll have you know," he said loftily, propping himself up on his elbows. "That _I_ am very pretty."

"Prettier now that you can finally wear a Master's armor," Rinna teased him. "It took you long enough. Holding the both of us up, you were."

Taliesin snorted.

"Well _excuse me_ for being a big clumsy human-"

"I _like_ that you're big," she told him. "And Zevran's a full-blooded elf who falls out of windows, I'll remind you, so no excuses."

Zevran traced the lines in the sky with his eyes. He was sure they joined up, made a full pattern, but he couldn't figure out how.

Rinna hooked a leg over his hip and pulled herself on top of him.

"Hey," she said, blocking his view of the sky. "You're not paying attention."

A griffin was looking at him over her shoulder.

"There's something-"

Rinna leaned down, pressing herself against him, and stopped him with a kiss. Taliesin's fingers threaded into his hair, angling his head back just the right amount to encourage it to become deeper, hotter. He'd always liked watching before joining the show himself.

"Stop thinking," Taliesin told him. "You think too much. You don't need to make this difficult for yourself. There's nothing wrong."

Rinna pulled back just enough to let Zevran catch his breath before they moved on to other things. Antivan summer nights were for lovers, after all; and they'd all become Crow Masters just a few hours ago. They had something to celebrate.

"It's all right," she murmured against his lips.

* * *

Anders couldn't remember the last time he'd been this bone-tired. Maybe one of the escape attempts? Or his first days in Kirkwall?

But nothing quite compared to the emotional exhaustion accompanying the strain of doing so much healing magic over the last days. He'd had low reserves- or no reserves- before, but he'd never had quite so much personally riding on whether a healing worked or not, or a patient he could do so little for as Zevran.

Or the Commander. He wasn't physically hurting, and Anders's magic couldn't do anything about the absolute mess he was at the moment. Zevran's little chance at getting free again had broken whatever resolve he'd been holding himself together with, and Alistair was sitting next to him across the table as Anders tiredly worked through breakfast. The Commander was flopped forward onto the table. He'd used all his energy up on crying and had nothing left to use on pretending to be all right, or functional, or anything but absolutely consumed by Zevran's condition.

Anders was familiar with that sort of despair. You just had to wait it out; though there was always the danger that maybe it wouldn't go away. He could easily see the Commander just sitting down and refusing to move, if Zevran ended up dying anyway. Just sitting there and not eating, not drinking, in his own sort of grieving solidarity, until he wasted away as well.

Although he'd have to fight for it. If nothing else, Anders was certain that Alistair would force-feed the Commander and bully him into doing something, even if it was just going into the Deep Roads early, rather than see him give up and wait for death to take him. Theron would never give up on him, or any of the rest of his people, and Alistair would return the favor.

So would Anders, so long as he had the energy to move- though scathing commentary delivered from a prone position could be very effective. Actually, none of the others would give up on the Commander, either. His chances at outliving Zevran were probably a lot higher than he wanted them to be.

He finished the food in front of him and mustered up the resolve to go upstairs to where Merrill and Viktory and Andreas were shut in with the blood magic books again. He'd probably just fall asleep in a chair and contribute nothing of real assistance, but he'd have tried, and they'd wake him up if Zevran needed him again. He would have gone back to Zevran's room, but Nathaniel and Sigrun had chased him out and taken watch themselves, since they weren't going to be in any danger even if Zevran woke up unexpectedly. He'd be too weak to do anything about the Magister's kill order.

Viktory and Merrill were having a quiet, intense argument when he shuffled into the room. Andreas looked to be staying well out of it, and Anders didn't blame him. Viktory was _not_ happy that Merrill had switched the thralldom into her control, and Merrill was refusing to be sorry. Anders wasn't too worried about it- Merrill was a nice person, even though she had huge gaping blind spots, like _blood magic._ Even if she hadn't known Theron before this, she would never have thought to exploit the thralldom.

"It might be the only way," Merrill said as Anders located the most comfortable-looking chair and collapsed in it.

"We're here to _remove_ the compulsions, not _replace-_ "

He didn't hear the rest of it, because he dropped right off into sleep.

* * *

It was raining in Rialto. It didn't usually, but it was coming down in sheets, and Zevran was out in the streets alone. Everything was deserted, the other citizens driven inside by the rain. A few glass-fronted tavernas were warm and brightly-lit, spilling gold over the wet, cracked slabs of ancient rough granite that paved the major roads.

Why was he out in this weather?

His Crow Master's leather armor was soaked through. This was not the proper way to treat your equipment, but being out here was… important. It had something to do with the way that his new armor sat wrong, too light all over even though this was nicest set he'd ever owned and it was heavier than the other sets the Crows had given him. He couldn't shake the feeling that there should be something shiny, something _more,_ about it. His mind flashed on Templar armor, and he shook his head to clear it. That was ridiculous.

Someone had forgotten about their laundry, and Zevran stopped in the middle of the road and blankly watched a sodden blanket, striped white and blue, for what could have been a few minutes or an entire hour. There was no sense of time, here in the rain.

He started walking again. A printshop had posted their available titles outside the door, and the only legible part left, where the ink hadn't run, said _'story of Fereldan Ki'_.

" _Chichino_!" someone called through the rain. It echoed slightly in the empty streets. " _Chichino_!"

The woman emerged from a side street. She was just a couple of inches shorter than him, but it was enough so that he could see over the top of her dark brown hair, shining gold in strips from the reflected lamplight. Ghilan'nan's horns spread across her forehead, a fitting crown to go with the forest green and sapphire blue of her dress.

"You scared me," his mother told him.

" _Abelas_ , _mama_."

She gave him a look of mild reproof.

"What have I told you about mixing languages?" she asked. "And where you're allowed to use them?"

 _No El'vhen outside our rooms in the Summer Lily,_ that had always been the rule. This was something special between them, something no one else was allowed to touch, in a place where they owned nothing.

" _Te pardone, mama._ "

She reached up and covered the tattoo running down one side of his face with her hand, sighing.

"We're going back now," she told him. "This is slaver weather."

Of course. That was why he was out here in this weather. He was trying to find his way home.

' _Ma vhenan_ , the rain whispered against glass and granite, soft and tender and warm, full of loving promise.

The Summer Lily was one of Antiva's middling brothels- in the hierarchy of prostitution, they were not so disposable as the street whores, but not nearly so valued as the courtesans. The brothel master cared whether his prostitutes were alive at the end of the night or not, but that was as far as things went. On the in-house hierarchy, Nina Rivasina was near the top. Dalish were exotic, and humans were willing to pay much more for a chance to tame the wild elvhen woman. It was why they only spoke Antivan when anyone else was around. His mother would trade on her _vallas'lin_ , on her accent in Antivan, on the few bits of Dalish clothing she still had, even on little details on life with her old clan for a little flare of mystery- but not her language. Not the way she spoke to her gods and her son.

Their rooms were at the top of the brothel, a bit cramped with worn wooden walls that splintered sometimes, if you accidentally ran into one at the height of the dry time of year. There were carpets on the floor to protect everyone's soles and shoes, even though that made the rooms on the lower floors progressively more stifling. The wool trapped the heat, kept it from rising away, out of the building.

The table was a little too low for him now, just enough to be uncomfortable. It had to be this height to fit under the window- glass, not good glass, but not bad glass either. A perk for his mother being one of the highest earners for the house. The rain wasn't saying anything now, but the running drops were making lines, the lines he knew but couldn't remember.

"I never wanted this for you," his mother said as she put dinner together- warmed-again fish chowder and leftover melon slices from the brothel's front entertaining room. "I wanted you to own yourself."

"I do, _mama_ ," he told her. "I always have. I've always made my own choices. It was my choice to take your place in the brothel when you were sick. It was my choice to agree to the courtesan training when the Crows said that was what I was fit for. And it's my choice which contracts I take, and how to execute the unspecified details."

"They're not really your decisions if you have no other choices."

"I could have chosen not obey the Masters, and they would have killed me. I could have chosen not to take up your work, and we would have been turned out into the street. But instead you are still alive, and now I am a Crow Master as good as any other."

She handed him his bowl.

"But we're hardly free."

"But we're not slaves," Zevran reminded her. " _Mama_ , what's wrong? What happened to: _'But at least this isn't Tevinter'_?"

She was staring into her own bowl. The surface of the chowder rippled as a tear fell into it.

"You deserved so much better, Satheraan," she said quietly and- he _did_ know that name.

"' _Many pleasant dreams'_ ," he remembered. "There's something- _Mama_ , I-"

A great eagle-owl smacked into the window, rattling the glass violently, and he startled.

* * *

"No. No! _Go away!_ "

Justice didn't move.

"I shall not."

"I'm dreaming," Anders threatened. "Right now, this little bit of the Fade is _mine!_ I _will_ make you go!"

"No. I am guarding you against demons."

"I can do that myself!" Anders snapped at him. "Go guard a child who's spending their first night in a Circle or something, they need it a lot more!"

"Not now," Justice disagreed. "You have exhausted yourself. You have been in close proximity to blood magic for days. The demons are waiting."

"And I can handle it _myself!_ I don't _want_ your help! _Or_ need it!"

"If you are so prepared, then perhaps you would have no objections to driving off other's demons."

Anders squinted suspiciously at him.

"Are you… trying to _trick_ me into agreeing to something? Because if you were, that was a really bad attempt."

"I am more mortal than I was," Justice told him stiffly. "It does not mean that I am _competent_ at it. I am no better than you are."

"I am _definitely_ better than that!"

"Are you?" he asked. "You feel so much. Everyone can see."

"Well," Anders said grumpily. "You don't need to go calling _attention_ to it."

"You care. It is a good thing. So you will help with the demons."

" _Yes,_ I'll get rid of some mage's demons so they don't succumb to temptation!" Anders told him. "You should have opened with that!"

"He is not a mage."

Anders was about to ask why there was a demon problem if there wasn't a dreaming mage involved, but then they were in front of the Vigil's gates.

"If this is your way of telling me that some blood mage went and unleashed an army of demons on Amaranthine while we've been gone-"

"Blood thralls are as susceptible to demons as any scared mage," Justice told him. "Most never encounter one before they die, because the mage controlling them holds the demons off. But the Commander's-"

"We killed her," Anders said, and glared at the Vigil's gates. They flew open under the force of his bitter anger. "And Merrill doesn't know how any of this works!"

He strode up the path towards the Vigil's courtyard, a route he'd taken hundreds of times before. There was no one else here this time, and he could almost believe that something terrible had happened to his old home; except that he could see the Black City rising behind the central bulk of the fortress.

"Before they confined themselves to testing boundaries," Justice said. "They tested to see if they could attack without provoking a mage. For a while, after he fell asleep, there were mages about. Then, the demons attempted subtlety, and I could stand against them as I tried to wake him. But now there are no mages."

"He didn't fall asleep," Anders said as they mounted the stairs into the Vigil proper. "He started dying."

"Ah. That explains much. We should find him quickly."

The only thing everyone needed even less than Zevran dying was Zevran turning into some sort of abomination. Maker, what a week they'd had.

Velanna was dead in the main hall by the entrance, Oghren and Sigrun by one of the bookshelves. Viktory was slumped against the closed door to the hallway that led to the stairs up to the rooms, the Voshai were scattered in the hallway beyond. Nathaniel had fallen face-first across the handrail of the staircase, which had channeled his blood to pool on the bottom steps. They had to step over Kallian's body at the top, and Anders came face-to-face with his own corpse outside the Commander's rooms.

"If you're a demon," he hissed at it as Justice went ahead of him, because some outrages would not be tolerated. "I'm going to kick your ass if you don't go away _right now._ "

Either really stupid demons were impersonating the dead, or they were all Fade constructs. Anders went into the Commander's rooms and shut the door behind him.

Zevran was standing over Alistair. His long knife and sword were still bloody and trembled in his hands, because Theron was here too, staring at him with wide, horrified eyes.

"How _could you?_ " the demon wearing the Commander's face cried. _"Zevran!"_

"I-"

"They're all dead! All of them! It wasn't enough that we almost lost Nathaniel and only just got Anders back-"

"I'm right here," Anders said. Zevran didn't hear him. Typical demons.

Zevran dropped his weapons.

"Theron- _'ma'len_ I-"

" _Don't call me that,"_ the demon said, doing a good impression of heartbroken betrayal, and shoved him away. Zevran fell to the floor, stunned. The demon turned its back on him.

"I thought we'd fixed you," it sobbed. "I thought it really _was_ all right now. I thought we could-"

"Theron-"

The demon turned fake despairing eyes on him.

"I can't trust you," it whispered.

Zevran was shaking all over and Anders knew a breaking point when he saw one coming. Time to stop this.

"I'm _not_ dead," he said, stepping between Zevran and the demon. "And you can't have him."

Feet-long spears of ice knocked the demon back as, behind him, Zevran pleaded: "No no no! Don't hurt him he's right-"

The demon regained its footing and moved to come for him, but Justice got there first. He'd kill the thing if he could, and if not then he'd hold it off long enough for Zevran to take charge of his own dreamscape again.

"It isn't," Anders told Zevran, turning to face him. "You didn't kill anyone. Alistair stopped you. We killed the Magister and got the Commander and Kallian back."

"I-" Zevran said. "No, I- I _did_ kill someone-"

"You didn't."

"Don't lie to me!" Zevran snapped at him, and then his face went slack with horror as he remembered. _"Nathaniel."_

"He's not dead," Anders said. "Zevran, look at me- _he's not dead._ I was right there, I healed him."

"But I-"

"If I hadn't been right there, yes, he would be dead," Anders agreed. "But I was and he isn't. If you can remember _that_ then you can remember the rest of it. This isn't real and you know it!"

"The cellar," Zevran said, struggling with the demon's illusion. "Chains. Barrel?"

"We locked you up in the cellar to one of the barrel supports, yes."

"Kallian was there?"

"For a lot of it. Since she wasn't included in the Magister's kill order."

"Theron was there," Zevran said, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, like he had a bad headache. He sounded sure of himself now. The Vigil was going out of focus. "He was telling me stories. He sang, too. And prayed, because-"

He froze, and Anders felt a warning tug all through himself. What was- someone was trying to wake him up!

"I was _dying,_ " was the last thing he heard Zevran say.

* * *

Wardens were stubborn and mages were stubborn and so it stood to reason that Warden mages were the most stubborn sorts of people, and Merrill thought that she really should have realized this from knowing Anders for so long.

"There's nothing here and you know it," Merrill said. All the books were closed and Andreas was gone, because she was _right_ about this. "The Magisters don't care about letting anyone go so there's nothing in the books, there's never going to be anything in the books no matter how many times we try _'looking at it a different way'_. There's just-"

"It didn't do anything to Commander and if it doesn't work then he'll have _two-_ "

Viktory stopped.

"Do you feel that?"

It took a moment of thought, but Merrill did. They both looked over at Anders.

"I don't think he usually gets demons," she said doubtfully. "But maybe without Justice…"

"He's been under a lot of stress this week," Viktory reminded her. "We'd better wake him up. Just in case."

It took a little prodding, but Anders did wake up- all at once, and with a curse as he shoved past them and ran down the hall.

"Anders!"

They caught up to him in Zevran's room, the light of a large spell just dying around his hands.

"That wasn't _my_ nightmare," he told them. "Justice came to get me, because it turns out that on top of everything else blood thralldom just _screams_ to every demon nearby: _'Look at me, I have no mental defenses, come feast on my soul!'_ And Kirkwall is _crawling with demons._ "

That was just horrifying. The books hadn't said anything about that.

"He can't stay here," Merrill said. "You have to-"

" _You_ have to _fix him!_ "

"We _can't!_ " Viktory yelled back.

Anders deflated.

"Shit."

Merrill crossed her arms.

"Stop it," she told Viktory. "Of _course_ we can. You just won't-"

"It's an awful idea and we're _not doing it!_ "

"Which one?" Merrill shot back. "Orders or-"

"You heard what Anders just said!" Viktory exclaimed. "If it doesn't work, which I don't think it _will,_ then he's stuck with demons _and_ darkspawn _and_ thralldom! We might as well just kill him now!"

"When did _darkspawn_ come into this?" Anders asked in alarm.

"Theron said I got rid of the taint in my eluvian by using my sort of blood magic," she told him. "So we could just go the other way and give Zevran the Taint. That should get rid of-"

Mistress Del's brother jumped up from where he'd been sitting in the corner with the dwarf Warden, listening.

"You will _not-_ "

"-the blood thralldom," Merrill persisted. "Viktory keeps saying that it didn't do that for Theron but she's wrong about her details, just a couple of compulsions isn't enough to change something as big as being a Warden, you'd _need_ something like that thralldom. But you give him the Taint and then you make him a Warden. That's what that man did when he took Theron. He said it was the only way to cure the Blight. So once you do that and it's gone then Zevran's fixed!"

"It doesn't actually work like that, Merrill," Anders said. "It doesn't _go away._ It _never_ goes away."

"But Theron is walking around perfectly fine and _alive,_ " Merrill said. "That's better than Zevran will have otherwise."

Viktory had clenched her hands into fists again.

"You are _not_ going to just _Taint someone_ without their permission! And the Joining could kill him!"

"Then at least we _did something!_ " Merrill exclaimed. "I promised Theron I'd fix him and this is the best I can do!"

"Viktory's right, though," the dwarf Warden said. "The Commander will never agree."

"He conscripted _me,_ " Mistress Del's brother disagreed.

"And did you tell him no?"

"I demanded to be hung instead. He didn't oblige me."

So there _was_ some hope.

* * *

Alistair watched as Theron silently struggled with the choice his sister had brought him.

"Isn't there something else?" Theron asked hollowly. "Anything else."

"Do what Fenris suggested and kill him," Anders said. He and Viktory were here too, to lodge their complaints about Merrill's idea. "Commander, he- he might actually be right, about it being a mercy. All the things he's suffering under- it's no way to live."

 _Not that he's living much right now,_ Alistair thought, and knew that Theron was doing the same.

Merrill sighed.

"I could," she said. "I could try to find a command, or a lot of them that work together, that would give him back some control. But I don't know if it would work."

"Try it," Theron ordered. "Use me- try it on me first."

"Theron-" Alistair tried to say, but his friend kept talking over him.

"Even if all you can manage is to let him _talk_ again-"

He visibly choked on his words.

"-then I can ask him. If he'd consent to being made a Warden."

Merrill nodded. Viktory didn't look much happier about this option than the Warden one, but turned to follow when the other left the room to start brainstorming.

"Anders," Theron said, and the mage hung back, giving Alistair a questioning look. He could only shrug in reply. He had no idea what Theron wanted.

"You," Theron said. "You were in his dreams?"

There was an awful note of wavering, longing hope in those words.

"It wasn't a nice dream, Commander," Anders told him. It was painfully clear that he was trying to be kind about this.

Alistair put a hand on Theron's back.

"Theron, maybe-"

"You saw him," Theron said to Anders, ignoring him. "How-"

"It was a _nightmare,_ " Anders said uncomfortably.

"But you _saw him._ "

Anders took a deep breath.

"He was dreaming that he'd killed all of us," he said. "Not you. The demon trying to get him was pretending to be you. It rejected him. Told him _'I can't trust you'_."

With his hand still on Theron's back, Alistair could feel his sharp, pained inhale as well as hear it.

"And you told him that it was a lie, didn't you? That I-"

"Of course I did," Anders said quickly. "Commander- of _course._ Merrill and Viktory woke me up before I could finish, but he was already breaking out of it himself. And Justice was still there. When I went down I cast enough magic on him to make it clear to any demons hanging around that there was a mage watching over him, so they'd better stay away unless they want a fight."

" _Thank you,"_ Theron told him. "Thank you, I-"

Alistair caught Anders's eye and jerked his head towards the door. He got the hint; but paused halfway through the turn towards the door.

"He knew you were there, Commander," he told him. "When I turned up and told him it was a lie he could remember that he'd tried to kill Nathaniel. I pushed him and he knew that we'd locked him up, and where, and that you and Kallian have been sitting with him. He heard you talking to him."

" _Oh,"_ Theron said. _"Oh."_

"He knows you're waiting for him, Commander. He knows we're trying. Even if we can't- he knows."

* * *

It took until late evening for Merrill to find the right words, and Theron spent all of them down in the cellar with Zevran because he could _hear him_ or at least he had when he was awake, and just maybe if he sat and talked and told him he loved him and he loved him and he loved him- maybe it would make his dreams untroubled, give him something to fight the demons with.

In the end, it was simple enough, for both of them. A snap of magic across glass, and:

" _You will always make your own choices."_

* * *

Zevran woke up, or at least he hoped he did. It was getting hard to tell. When Anders had shown up- that illusion had started like this, a perfectly logical progression of events from being captured and un-thralled.

Except that he wasn't. There were just different words in his head overriding everything else now, and he wanted to curl up and shake at the knowledge of them, empty his stomach until he was hollow again and nothing mattered, nothing at all, because right now he was warm and there was a familiar weight next to him and Theron had been so worried but how was he supposed to _live like this._ He'd _always_ made his own choices, prided himself on it, because sometimes that was all you could hold onto.

And now every second, he was being reminded that once, he hadn't been able to.

 _You will always make your own choices._

"Zev?"

He hadn't been expecting to hear that voice.

"Bela-"

His throat was sore and dry, like he'd been screaming. He didn't remember screaming.

"I'm supposed to go get Alistair now that you're up," she told him. "But I figured I should ask if you wanted to see anyone first."

Creators no.

"I thought maybe you might want to talk?" Isabela suggested, just a little hesitant, and sat down on the bed next to him, where he could see her, so he wouldn't have to think about moving.

"Theron-"

"Your man's been out cold since Merrill finished her questionably-safe practices," she said. "Anders knocked him out. Said it would help him get back on an even keel. He's not supposed to wake up for hours yet."

"I can't," Zevran said. "Not with him. He'll just blame himself, and he doesn't- he shouldn't."

Isabela hunted for his hand under the blankets and took it.

"I'm right here, Zev. And I locked the door."

" _I couldn't stop myself."_

The only safe place was in control. He'd learned that well and often through his whole life. The few times he'd given himself into someone else's power, no matter how marginal, had gone so badly. He'd let Rinna and Taliesin think for him, given them what love and trust he'd managed to hold on to, and been torn apart for the sake the Crows by it. That had been the biggest one, the one that had hurt the most; and he'd been so scared _was_ still so scared to give himself to Theron but he'd stuck by it, hoped for better, and now he was _here_ because he cared about people and had gone and done something stupid, stupid, _stupid._

"Zev?"

It was suddenly too much to be lying in this bed next to Theron, Theron who'd cuddled up against his side and spent the last week trying to talk him back to himself because he _loved-_

"I dreamed about Antiva," he told her. "Rinna and Taliesin and my mother. Bela- _tu pardone, non puezo restar qui ha veza_."

 _I can't stay here any longer._

"I know a good place to get blind drunk on bad liquor," she offered. "It's also a great place to pick up a barfight. Or it's late enough to go highwayman-baiting. All sorts of weird cults and criminal orders come out at night around here. Nobody'll miss 'em. Or roof-running, if you feel up to it."

Crow-trained responses were coming back hard. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin with the wrongness of everything and the danger and he so badly wanted his hands around hilts again.

"Highwaymen."

She helped him sneak out the window. He didn't have armor or his own blades, but Isabela lent him some of her extra knives and he was- had been- a _Crow,_ he was too good for street thugs. His armor was his speed and his reflexes, and if they failed him because he was still recovering from _almost dying,_ so be it. A clean death was no bad thing.

But they didn't, or at least not enough for it to matter, and Isabela showed him all the best places in Kirkwall to ambush the unwary and the best alleys and side streets to lose people in, or use to separate one or two from a too-big group.

Zevran let her keep what she wanted from the dead, and Isabela let him take his time with the living, taking other's blood instead of having it taken from him, slow quick painless agony, and even with the ones he let go without even a scratch because _he was making his own choices,_ he remembered that this was what he'd been made for. He tried to subsume everything under the wash of blood because if he could spill enough maybe he could forget where the boundary between red on the ground and red in his head was but

 _It's not too late. Come back and we'll make up a story. Anyone can make a mistake._

 _I never wanted this for you._

 _No one escapes the Crows._

 _Together we'll find out how much he likes having a blood thrall for a lover._

 _Such is the way Satheraan Nehna Revasina lived._

Dawn came and Zevran returned Isabela's daggers, reluctantly.

"You don't have to go back," she told him, because she was ever one for moving on. "If you want to do me a favor, I've got this problem named Castillon."

"You never go looking for small trouble, Bela," he said, not trying to squash the flare of interest he got at the idea of having a contract again, even informal. He had no idea if it was the leftover feeling of Antiva, or the pleasant no-thoughts of having something to kill. "The Felicisima Armada? _Really?_ "

"We had a costly disagreement about cargo out of Orlais. He lost his goods, I lost my _ship._ "

"I shall tell you if I do anything about it," he promised, and went back to the estate. He was in time for breakfast, and walked in bloody and mussed with a sharp edge in his chest that wanted to slice open everything, to prove that he could.

Alistair stared, because they'd been through so much together since meeting each other, but Zevran was well aware that this was the closest since a Denerim back-alley that he'd looked like just another killer.

Everyone else was staring, too, except for Theron. Theron clutched his bloody hands like they were the only real thing in the world, and his eyes said so much more than his words did- _where have you been, I woke up without you, please I want you to be all right, I want this all to be_ _ **over.**_

"Do you feel better now?" was all he asked.

 _No,_ Zevran wanted to say, because Theron would want the truth.

"Yes," he said instead, because maybe then Theron would let him go.


	13. Chapter 13

Enoch Van Markham arrived in Kirkwall a week after the letter had come to Ansburg through not sleeping enough, eating in the saddle, and changing horses on the post road at every opportunity. It also helped that people who used the Marches' post road knew to get out of the way when a courier-horse came charging down the middle of the path.

They did it even faster when they saw that it wasn't a courier-horse, but a mounted Warden. The Marches' Wardens were not known for being seen outside of Ansburg, and stories of the Fifth Blight were still a fresh memory. A Warden galloping flat-out was a man on a mission of vital importance for all of Thedas.

Thank the Maker that the city guard knew where the Fereldan Wardens were staying, otherwise he would have had to scour the city, and lose precious time.

The elf who answered the door looked surprised to see his armor.

"Warden-Constable Enoch Van Markham of the Free Marches," he introduced herself when she continued just standing there. "Ansburg received a letter from Warden-Commander Mahariel, and I am here to answer it."

"I- all right," she said. "You can come in? I'll go see if he's up for visitors."

That sounded bad. That sounded _very_ bad.

The mansion was clean, but it had a newly-scrubbed look about it. It was underfurnished, but even the addition of more couches or tables or chairs wouldn't get rid of the obvious signs of wear and neglect. Enoch was struck by the curious feeling of walking into the home of a group of meticulous squatters, determined to offset their utter poverty by upholding it to an acceptable standard.

He'd better not say that out loud. But still, it was strange that they were so obviously making-do rather than staying with any of Kirkwall's eminent families, or even the city guard. The Warden-Commander was also the arl of what had been the best port city in Ferelden, after all.

Maybe that was it. This was a group of Fereldans led by a Dalish barbarian who'd torched his own best asset. Maybe they _liked_ living like this, Maker only knew. He'd never had any desire to visit Ferelden. Coming to the Free Marches after growing up in the Nevarran nobility had been shock enough. At least the Free Marches were _respectable._ Ferelden was just a mudhole that subsisted on the delusion that they could fight the Orlesian Empire.

The formal dining room the elf took him to looked like the place where whoever had tried to clean this place had just given up. The table had been done, and the chairs, and the floor between the doors and the table; but rubble and broken furniture had been shoved up against the walls. He was left alone in this room for a good ten minutes, and ended up taking a chair even though the elf hadn't bothered to offer one to him.

A human woman came to greet him eventually, all smiles and noble bearing and no hint of warrior about her, much less Warden.

"I am Lady Delilah Stockard of Amaranthine," she told him, when he stood to take her hand and bow over it in the proper courtly fashion. "Our apologies for not being better hosts, but we've had an extremely trying week, and I'm afraid the people who would usually greet you took the worst of it."

This woman kept saying _'our'_ , even though she wasn't a Warden. She'd said she was Lady of Amaranthine- or maybe just a Lady from the Arling of Amaranthine?- and Enoch hadn't thought that the Grey Wardens of Ferelden had entrenched themselves so effectively.

"Forgive me," he said, because he was here on Warden business that was only for the ears of Wardens, so he needed something else to talk to Lady Stockard about. "But I must confess myself unfamiliar with the Fereldan peerage system."

"Few outside of Ferelden are," Lady Stockard said graciously. "Our Queen sits at the top, naturally, and under her are the two Teyrns- well, one now- and sworn to them are the six Arls, with the exception of our Arl-Commander, who is beholden mostly to his own self. Also sworn to the Teyrns, and to the Arls of Amaranthine and South Reach, are many of the Banns. Other Banns rule as minor independent lords, sworn directly to the Queen and the Landsmeet. The Lords proper are few, landless, and sworn to Arls or Teyrns, given their titles for their service. Fereldan knights may be sworn to any of the nobility, or simply to their Order."

Landless nobility. How marvelous. In Enoch's experience and hear-say, those sorts were conniving, sycophantic bastards, always grasping at the chance to be raised into the true nobility.

"And what service do you provide for your Arl, Lady Stockard?"

She recognized the test in his wording. Her smile went just a little tight on the edges.

"I am to be Seneschal of Amaranthine," she told him. "I will relieve the duty from my poor brother, who has been acting dually in that role and as Warden-Constable of Ferelden. He and a Senior Warden should be attending to you shortly."

So she was competent enough at the Game. Not particularly elegant and rather too forthright- Fereldans!- but polite and effective at shutting a conversation down. She'd even naturally worked in the information that she was of roughly the same rank as him, considering only the Warden side of things, without being crass about it. It wasn't that he'd honestly had any suspicions that the Warden-Commander of Ferelden was keeping her as his mistress; but one just did not meet a fellow member of the nobility and not determine their status relative to yours, on paper and in actuality.

When Lady Stockard's brother and the Senior Warden arrived, Enoch was sure that they were having a joke at his expense. The taller, blond one couldn't be older than his mid-twenties and the shorter, darker one was just _maybe_ a couple of years older. Neither of these men were old enough for the positions they supposedly claimed- they were barely old enough to be Warden recruits!

It turned out that the dark one was Lady Stockard's brother, Warden-Constable Howe; and the blond one was Warden-Captain Alistair of some place called Soldier's Peak.

Maker and Andraste, what was the world coming to. What were they _doing_ in Ferelden? A Senior Warden who was twenty-five if he was a day!

He was also taken off-balance by the fact that the Constable was _'Howe'_ and not _'Stockard'_. Strange that they wouldn't share a surname. He'd thought that, since Lady Stockard was going to be Seneschal, the Stockard family was well-regarded. He would have said that her brother had married up and taken his wife's surname, but Wardens didn't marry. Maybe it was their mother's family name, and he was making a point.

"Where's your Commander?" he asked Constable Howe once his sister had left the room.

"Recovering," Howe answered shortly. "We had a bad encounter with a Tevinter blood Magister earlier this week. He isn't better yet."

That was an honest relief. When that elf had said she'd go see if the Commander was up for visitors, he'd been sure she was helping to cover up an unnatural Calling.

"The good thing is that we figured out what the Taint source here was," Captain Alistair said, and no, never mind, they'd clearly all been caught in the beginning stages of it. "A local financed a trip to the Deep Roads to look for treasure since the Blight cleaned out many of the tunnels closest to the surface. A member of the expedition brought back some Tainted lyrium without knowing what it was-"

"Excuse me," Enoch interrupted. _"Tainted lyrium?"_

"Hey, we were surprised too. We only found a little bit of it thought. The rest of it was sold, and we don't know to whom or to where."

"It's red," Howe put in, "Simply physical proximity is enough to cause people to begin exhibiting signs of madness. It took nothing more than skin contact to convince one dwarf to abandon his brother in the Deep Roads so he could keep the red lyrium for himself. We found the remaining piece locked in a glass-lined iron box. It appears to work well enough."

"That's…" Enoch said. "That's much better news than I feared."

"What?" the Captain asked. "Ogres in the streets, ghouls haunting the estates, shrieks in the Chantry?"

"Don't even joke about that!" he immediately reprimanded the entirely-too-young man. All of Kirkwall darkspawn- Maker. "Can't you put two thoughts together! Or can't you imagine the disaster that would be!"

The Captain's face went stone-hard. It made him look significantly more suited to the title _'Senior Warden'_ \- not older, but someone who'd had true experience.

"I don't have to imagine it," he said, humor vanished. "I'm the other Warden who made it through the Blight. I saw what was left of our brothers and sisters at Ostagar. I've spent entirely too long in the Roads. I've _seen_ a city overrun by darkspawn. I faced down the Archdemon."

Enoch wasn't sure if it was politic to apologize or not.

"In the Vimmark Mountains," he told them instead. "There's a tower that rises out of the Roads. It's at least as magically fortified as Aeonar, and staffed entirely by Wardens. Inside it is imprisoned a talking, thinking darkspawn who claims to be one of the original Magisters who defiled the Golden City. If that's the truth doesn't matter much. It can imitate an Archdemon's song, drawing in more darkspawn and nearby Wardens who aren't prepared to stand against it. In Ages we have not been able to kill it. Only keep it trapped."

"There are _more_ talking darkspawn?" Howe asked, and Enoch had not thought that this could be worse. If they hadn't heard of Vimmark Prison then they definitely hadn't heard of the other ones which meant they only could have encountered one during the Blight, or in the Roads, roaming around free and causing trouble he didn't even want to begin to contemplate.

"There are two other Warden prisons, in the Hunterhorn Mountains and the Hundred Pillars. We had thought that they remained unbreached but if we have been so deceived-"

"The Architect never said anything about Magisters," Howe interrupted him. "And he's dead, anyway. I helped kill him. He was part of the… _'Thaw'_ , is the technical term, for right after a Blight is over? He was making darkspawn like him, capable of thought and speech, by having them drink Warden blood."

If Enoch thought about that he was going to be sick.

"There was this whole civil war between darkspawn. It was… a strange experience."

"And you're _certain_ it's been taken care of?" Enoch asked.

"It's been four years, and everything's been quiet since."

Maybe, just _maybe,_ they'd gotten out of this one. But Enoch wasn't sure it was ever a good idea to be optimistic when it came to darkspawn.

"Constable Van Markham?" Captain Alistair asked. "You said this darkspawn could draw in Wardens who were close by? _How_ close by?"

"There's a good reason why our headquarters is on the _other_ side of the Marches," Enoch told them. "Kirkwall is- I'm honestly surprised that you found an actual Taint source in the city. We don't come here. Vimmark Prison is close enough that it _always_ feels a little Tainted here."

The Captain's expression did an odd thing- he wasn't sure if that was anger or just a reaction to a nasty surprise- as Howe muttered something about _'can't have been good for Anders'_.

After a moment, the Captain slammed his hands down on the table and shouted: _"Fuck this!"_

"Um," Enoch said.

The Captain stood, and his chair scraped loudly against the floor.

"Get up, Nathaniel, _we're leaving._ "

"Alistair, we can't just-"

" _Maferath's mercy_ we can! We don't deserve this! _This city_ is a Blighted cesspit of blood magic and corruption and _we are going home._ If we stay here this _sodding prison_ is going to be the next thing to get us, and I'm not going to wait around and hope that it doesn't happen! I'm not _doing_ that to Theron, or Zevran, or Anders, or _any_ of them; and I'd _hope_ that you wouldn't want to do this to your _sister!_ I don't _care_ what ship it is, we're getting on one out of here _tonight! This is the last straw, Howe!_ "

Senior Wardens did not order their Constables around. Enoch waited for Howe to reprimand him, but either his Captain was just saying what he himself was thinking; or the Blight Warden got a lot of leeway because of his experience. But if that was true, why wasn't the Captain Constable?

Fereldans were strange.

"Go tell everyone to pack up," Howe told him after a moment. "I'll see Constable Van Markham out and find us a ship."

* * *

They hadn't gotten a courier ship, which was just as well. Nathaniel had said that all the regular couriers between Kirkwall and the Fereldan coast were rather miffed at them for the way they'd kept cancelling their negotiated passages home. Instead they'd gotten berths on a merchant out of Rivain that started from Llomerryn, made a westward circuit around Antiva's coastal cities, then bounced back and forth across the Waking Sea from Ostwick to Highever to Kirkwall to Jader to Cumberland to Val Chevin and Val Royeaux. She was on her way back to Llomerryn, and had been persuaded to make an extra stop in Amaranthine for a little more coin and his promise of no tariffs or port tax once they got there. No one from Llomerryn would pass up that sort of opportunity, and so the ship's captain was quite happy to have them along in the empty space some of her sold cargo had once occupied.

Theron left Nathaniel and Delilah to discuss with the first mate the sort of goods on sale in Amaranthine- apparently news of the arling's new mines hadn't really left Ferelden, and the first mate thought that he could convince his captain to speculate on some Amaranthine granite and silverite ore. While they secured a little bit of the arling's financial future, Theron went looking for Zevran.

He was up in the rigging, and Theron stood on the deck looking up at him for quite some time before one of the sailors offered to go get him down.

"Thank you, but only if he wants to."

He wondered if Zevran was thinking about Isabela. Theron had extended invitations to her, Merrill, and Fenris to come back to Amaranthine with them, but Fenris was the only one who had accepted. Theron hadn't really been expecting Merrill to come along, since she had Marian, but he still missed her. Zevran was probably feeling the same about his old friend.

Theron wasn't actually sure why Isabela hadn't come along. He'd gotten the impression that she'd stayed in Kirkwall too long for her liking, but her business was her business. He'd made sure that she knew that she was welcome to come visit and not pressed for an explanation.

Still, he wished she had come. She clearly made Zevran happy, and- he really needed that right now. Ever since he'd woken up, he'd been distant and pensive, entirely unlike himself. And he wouldn't talk about it, and wouldn't say why.

Theron couldn't get him to smile. He wasn't sure that Zevran had been sleeping, either, and that made panic flutter in his gut. What if Merrill _hadn't_ worked it out as well as she thought she had, what if he was still-

The sailor who'd gone up into the rigging reported that Zevran didn't want to come down. So Theron left, and hoped that he'd come to bed tonight.

* * *

They'd docked in Highever for the day when Zevran came to see him. Anders had been wondering if and when he would.

"Do mages dream of demons?" he asked.

"Often enough," Anders told him. "Not all the time. They usually only target those very strong in magic, or those very weak- naturally, or through exhaustion; and also those in fragile emotional or mental states."

Zevran's expression didn't change, but there was a little flare of hatred in his eyes. Anders remembered the morning he'd come in to breakfast covered in the previous night's blood, and told himself not to flinch.

"How do you _sleep?_ " Zevran demanded.

They were down in the hold. Anders had been staying out of sight of the crew out of habit. He'd almost broken himself of the low-level anxiety that came from not having somewhere to hide while with the Wardens, but then Caron had come and then he'd been in Kirkwall and Kirkwall was almost nothing _but_ hiding. He knew the crew wasn't going to hurt him, because he was claimed as a Warden and under the Commander's protection besides, but he still felt more secure down here. He'd have plenty of time once they got back to Amaranthine to finally shed the anxiety for good.

Anders gestured for him to sit on a crate, and hopped up onto one himself.

"In the Circle, it's called _'lucid dreaming'_ ," he said. "The trick is to always know when you're dreaming, so you'll be able to tell if demons are trying to deceive you. It can take a lot of practice. Not everyone can do it. Those who can't are usually pulled for the Rite of Tranquility rather than allowed to take their Harrowing. Most apostates don't learn how to do it, and just avoid dreaming at all out of fear. If you train yourself into waking up every hour and half or so, you can avoid dreaming entirely, or only get a little way into one before your body wakes you up out of habit."

Zevran was clenching his fingers around the edge of the crate he was sitting on. Anders didn't think that he knew he was doing it.

"Tell me how," he said. "They keep coming, every night. I can't sleep any longer. I just- don't."

"When you're awake, get into the habit of asking yourself if you're awake, and check. The best thing to do is to try to focus on details, read a bit of something if there's a text around. Then look away and look back. The Fade doesn't _'remember'_ things like that very well. If it's changed, or if you can't make out the details or the words in the first place, or remember them at all, then it's a dream. When you wake up, keep a record of your dreams. Usually you'll have the same sorts of oddities in each, and once you know to look for them, it's a lot easier. And if you wake up from a dream, _go back to sleep._ "

Oh, he didn't like _that_ advice. Anders remembered not liking it either, when the Circle taught him how to do this. He wasn't sure that any mage had ever taken it well.

"It's important," Anders told him. "Even if you're terrified out of your wits, or so angry you want to kill something, or don't see the point in living like this any longer, go back to sleep. Strong emotions make it easier for you to keep control."

Zevran didn't look convinced.

"But the demons feed on those emotions."

"But they're yours," Anders said. "They make you human- well, you know. Demons and spirits only get one. We get all of them, and we get them intensely. The more we feel, the more we can change the Fade, and the more control we have over our souls."

"Ah," Zevran said, and that had seemed to help? Good. Anders remembered most apprentices in the Circle having the hardest time with this truth. It had a tendency to seem counterintuitive to people. Well, Zevran was an adult, and could reason through it like children couldn't. "But if that does not work?"

"Train yourself like the apostates do," Anders told him, and shrugged. "I can't help you with that one, sorry, I never learned it. And there's-"

Did he want to bring this up? He thought about it for a moment as Zevran watched him sharply. Zevran had been a Crow. He had assassin training. He knew how to not poison himself.

"There's a pill you can make," Anders said. "Out of snowdrops, or if they're not in season, daffodils. You pick the leaves and bulbs, crush them up, roll the bits together in a bit of fat, and eat it. Someone told me once that it works best with snowdrops _and_ daffodils, but I haven't tried it myself. It's bad for your memory and your heart if you get it wrong, and you shouldn't take it long-term. But if you get knocked off the asleep-awake-asleep cycle, that can help you make the dreams lucid while you get back into it. I know how to make it if you want some, but I haven't got any of the ingredients with me right now."

"Perhaps," Zevran said, and got off his crate. "I may ask again when we arrive in Amaranthine."

* * *

Fenris had very little to compare this journey to. He could remember the trip by ship to Seheron and back, and knew the look of the island and Minrathaous from the water, but he hadn't sailed into Kirkwall. He'd come overland, in secret. This was the first time he'd come to a new city openly, without a master.

Amaranthine's coast from the sea looked much like the descriptions he'd heard of the approach to Kirkwall, though here there were no signs of ancient Magisters bending the earth to their will. The coast was rocky and rose and fell between cliffs, the sea-exposed rock mostly the dirty white-grey of Kirkwall, but here shot through with wide bands and veins of warm brown-yellow-orange-red stone.

"Amaranthine granite," Kallian said, coming up to lean on the railing beside him. "The arling is named Amaranthine because of the amaranth flowers that grow here. There are a couple of different types- Green Tails, Andraste's Torch, and Love-Lies-Bleeding are the most common. You can eat the leaves and seeds- Green Tails is the best for that- or plant them for garden decoration or to make dyes. Andraste's Torch is a dark wine color, and Love-Lies-Bleeding is a sort of pink-purple. Amaranth dye is pink or purple or that deep wine red- Chantry colors. The arling supplied dye to most of Chantries in Thedas under the White Divine, and the nobility as well. Orlais has fields they planted from Amaranthine seed they stole during the Occupation, but the quality isn't as good because they don't know how to breed them properly, and the flowers don't do as well in their sort of soil."

She smiled a little, with a sideways look at him.

"And they say that Amaranthine dye is better for the Chantry anyway, since Andraste was born here. More holy, and all that."

Memory stirred- Magisters' bright robes and dressed, brilliantly-colored imported potpourri in elegant glass jars and tubes in the High Chantry, lip paint in an impossibly deep red.

"Some makes its way to Tevinter as well," he told her, and saw that she was trying not to smile wide. "You can be proud of that. I won't hold it against you."

"I was never really proud of Denerim, or Ferelden much," Kallian admitted, watching as the cliffs started to fall away again. "So I was surprised when I started to care about Amaranthine. But it's _mine._ And I'm part of rebuilding it better- a place for elves to go that isn't the Dalish, a place where the Wardens rule fairly, a place where most don't have to worry about money because the dye with the granite and silverite can make us rich, and there'll always be work on the docks or unskilled hands needed for the little jobs that hold it all together."

His immediate reaction was to scoff and dismiss it as idealistic nonsense, but he bit it back. This place had an elf as its ruling noble and they'd taken him in without any pressing need to, and then not turned on him when he'd almost cost them everything. He owed them for their kindness, which was why he was on this ship and why he'd refrain from criticizing very harshly.

The coast turned and the cliffs began to rise again. What Fenris thought might have been a rock outcrop slowly resolved itself into high city walls constructed of Amaranthine granite, the ramparts and towers roofed with a mosaic of warm-colored woods.

"The city of Amaranthine," Kallian told him. "It's a shame we're not coming into port later in the day. It's beautiful at sunset. It looks like it's made of sky."

From what he could tell of the seaward approach, the city the arling took its name from had high, strong walls on the three landward sides, and a lower one facing the water and the port. The cliffs dropped at the shore here, a natural scoop out of the landscape that probably made this the best natural port for miles in either direction. The city proper stood at the top back of the scoop, but the land walls extended out around to the cliff edge, ending in tall, sturdy towers- lighthouses.

He'd thought only Tevinter had those.

Behind them, the crew hurried back and forth across the ship. Someone cursed nearby and Fenris glanced back- two sailors were trying to tie a roll of cloth to a third with a length of rope. They succeeded and the sailor flew up the rigging to the flag mast. A banner quartered cream and gold, bearing a sort of deer and a bear again in cream on the opposite quarters, unfurled in the wind shortly after.

A few minutes later, the lighthouses of Amaranthine were flying new banners under the gold sun on wine red of the city- the Wardens' blue and white in the east, and cream and gold again but with only a brown bear in the west.

"And now they know we're here," Kallian said. "There'll be a crowd at the docks, and the City Council and Captain Alec of the city guard and Mother Eileen from Our Lady Redeemer will be there for the official welcome. If you want to slip off instead, I'll help. I just have to tell someone."

Fenris thought about being in the center of attention, and a stranger, a foreign-looking elf in the midst of so much Warden armor, and accepted her offer. She went off to tell one of the Wardens what they were doing, and when they docked, got him away from the crowd with reassuring alacrity.

"Care for a tour?"

She took him all around the city, pointing out such local landmarks as The Crown and Lion, the inn where they'd be staying the night; and the Chantry of Our Lady Redeemer on top of an artificially-heightened jut of land, newly rebuilt in the finest local granite and imported Antivan stained glass for the windows.

He stood at the top of the stairs connecting the lower city to the upper city, staring at the building, struck by how different it looked from the other important Chantries he'd seen. The High Chantry in Minrathous had been made out of one of the temples to an Old God; and the Chantry in Kirkwall, he'd heard, was Tevene materials and techniques trying to imitate the Grand Chantry in Orlais. He knew Our Lady Redeemer was a pilgrimage site, but it seemed rather- unpretentious. It was nice, yes, and obviously meant to be impressive; but it wasn't overwhelming. Was this a Fereldan thing?

It took until Kallian stopped them at a booth attached to one of the city market shops for Fenris to realize why, as they'd walked through the city, he'd been feeling out of place, yet strangely belonging.

"There are a lot of elves here," he said to Kallian as the stall owner handed over two green-wrapped edible things in exchange for her handful of coppers. He was human, but hadn't thought a thing of greeting an elf woman in official armor with a greatsword across her back with an easy _'Hey, Sergeant!'_ and a smile.

"There are," she agreed, and handed him one of the edible things. "These are our local specialty, amaranth seedcakes- no, you don't unwrap them, the amaranth leaves are part of it. Helps keep the thing together."

Fenris took a bite. It was strange tasting toasted greens and crystallized honey in the same mouthful, but it wasn't bad.

"A lot of people got displaced by the Blight," Kallian explained as they ate. "And then when Queen Anora gave Amaranthine to the Arl-Commander, a lot of Fereldan elves got excited about the possibilities of an elf who was a hero to the humans _and_ an official part of the nobility, so a bunch of us left our alienages and came to Amaranthine- the arling, not the city. But then there were more darkspawn and Arl-Commander disappeared for a bit and some asshole out of Orlais got sent to replace him. Everyone who'd been displaced or come looking for better got stuck in a tent city outside Vigil's Keep- that's the Wardens' headquarters here- and if there's one thing us Fereldans hate more than anything else, it's Orlesians, especially in positions of authority. It was a good bonding experience for us, and that's why there's so many elves here, and no alienage."

Fenris had to remember to swallow.

"No _alienage?_ "

"That's the best thing about this city," Kallian said proudly. "The people from the tent city got first pick of the land here once the Arl-Commander came back and the city started rebuilding, and in exchange we helped with the rebuilding. Since everybody was friends, an alienage never came up, and then the city was finished and we'd all just silently agreed to ignore that it didn't exist. The biggest problem the guard has now is new humans coming to the city who don't have the same mindset and think that elves _should_ be in alienages. I'll tell you a dirty little secret- the guard doesn't usually book people for beating up on those sorts so long as it's only as bad as the average bar brawl. The guards here are all from the tent city or transferred from the Vigil here because they'd been helping us out, you see."

She swallowed the last of her seedcake.

"Now, I'm not saying there aren't elven neighborhoods," she told him. "Because there are. Some elves want that sort of security. But a good half of this city at least is elven, and plenty of them live mixed right in with the humans. It's giving the rest of the country a quiet fit, but Captain Garavel says that we're winning, because elves from the alienages keep paying out to come _here,_ and places like Denerim and Highever and Gwaren are going to be facing a real shortage of cheap labor soon, if they don't start making things nicer for their elves."

Kallian looked up.

"Come on. It'll be dark soon and I want to show you the view from the walls before we go to the Crown and Lion."

The sun had begun to set by the time they got to the best spot on the battlements, and Fenris had to agree that it made the city of Amaranthine look made of sky.

* * *

The afternoon had been taken up by the official welcome home at the docks, an informal presentation of Delilah and her family, and briefings from the City Council and Captain Alec on the state of the city and surrounding area. Things were going well.

By the time that had been over, it had been time for dinner. Now that was over as well and Theron was in his bed for the night, and finally had time to look at the letter Captain Alec had handed him some hours ago. It was sealed with Queen Anora's signet ring in wax and the official Fereldan royal ribbon, gold-edged cream with running mabari in black.

He cracked the seal.

 _To His Arlship Theron Mahariel Sabrae of Amaranthine and Commander of the Grey in Ferelden: Greetings._

 _Where are you, stop running off, you have an arling to take care of. I got a letter from Viscount Dumar about taking back Fereldan refugees, and while I agree it's a good idea, I_ _did __not_ _authorize a diplomatic mission. I forgive you only because the Viscount made it clear in his letter that he's been wondering if it was politic to ask me about this for some time. Please try to confine yourself to dealing with your own business in the future, unless explicitly asked for assistance, as I am doing right now._

 _It has been five years since my husband died, and this country is now stable and secure enough under my rule to accept a Prince-Consort. I am soliciting advice from the most trusted of my people on the matter, and expect you in Denerim at court at your earliest availability once you return from Kirkwall. Bring one of your Orlesians, Alistair, and Zevran._

 _From the hand of Her Royal Highness Queen Anora, Arlessa of Denerim, Teyrna of Gwarin, etc.; by the blessing of Andraste and the conviction of the Landsmeet._

Enclosed behind the terse letter were several additional pieces of paper. There was one for each region of Thedas, labeled at the top and followed by a list of names, occasionally with annotations- with the exception of the papers _'Tevinter Imperium'_ and _'Rivain'_ , both of which contained only one other word: _'heretics'_.

Theron was looking at the list title _'Ferelden'_ , with its three lonely names and an annotation noting the fact that most of the eligible young noblemen had been killed in the Blight and that the country was facing a dearth of native husbands for its many noble daughters, when Zevran came in.

He put the papers down immediately and waited hopefully, breath short, as Zevran stripped down and slipped into bed with him.

"What have we here?" he asked, fingering the papers.

"Anora is going husband-hunting to secure the succession," Theron told him, and Zevran pulled out the list for Antiva and skimmed it.

"Hm," he said, and then took the rest of the papers and tossed them onto the bedside table. He turned the movement into a roll onto Theron, half-supporting his body on his elbows and burying his face into the side of Theron's neck, inhaling deeply.

Theron reached up to hug him, and Zevran pulled away a little.

"It occurred to me," he said, and maybe the smile and the promising look were a little forced but he was _trying,_ this was the mostly like himself he'd been in days. "That I have yet to thank you for the absolutely _fantastic_ endorsement of me you gave your clan."

"You deserved it," Theron told him, and this time Zevran didn't move away when he reached for him, instead letting himself be pulled down into a kiss.

"' _Ma'sal'shiral_ ," Zevran said against his lips, and Theron smiled so wide it hurt, warmth flooding his body.

"' _Ma vhen'an_ , _'ma_ Satheraan."

When he awoke in the morning, Zevran was gone. So was Anora's list of potential husbands in Antiva, which had been replaced with a note in his handwriting.

 _I am returning to Antiva. Do not follow me. Tell Anora that every name on her list is a Crow, or has close ties to them. Foreigners always forget that we are the real power in this country._

And then a bit further down, an afterthought:

 _I am sorry. Sal'shira nenhnis, vivir feliza, live well- I cannot wish it enough. Thank you for all you have done, but you can do no more._

Theron sat in bed clutching the note for a long time, staring blankly at the opposite wall. Zevran's clothes and weapons were gone, but he'd left his Warden armor. It was folded and stacked neatly on the desk chair, silverite plate gleaming in the morning sun.


End file.
